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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. I 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.! 



ESSAYS 



UPON THE 



PERPETUITY, CHANGE, AND SANCTIFICATH>N, 



SABBATH. 



BY HEMAN HUMPHREY, D. D. 

President of Amherst College. 



PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF A COMMITTEE OF GENTLEMEN, 




NEW YORK : 

JONATHAN LEAVITT, No. 182 BROAtfWAY. 

BOSTON : 

CROCKER & BREWSTER, 

47 Washington Street. 

1829. 



-a\f u° 



- 



Southern District of New York) ss. 

BE IT REMEMBERED, That on the 21st day of 
March, A. D. 1829, in the fifty-third year of the Indepen- 
dence of the United States of America, Jonathan Leavitt, 
of the said District, hath deposited in this office the title 
of a Book, the right whereof he claims as Proprietor, in 
the words following, to wit : 

" Essays upon the Perpetuity, Change, and Sanctification, 
of the Sabbath. By Heman Humphrey, D. D. Presi- 
dent of Amherst College. Published under the direc- 
tion of a Committee of Gentlemen." 

In conformity to the Act of Cosgress of the United 
States, entitled " An act for the encouragement of Learn- 
ing, by securing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, 
to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the 
time therein mentioned." And also to an Act, entitled 
" An Act, supplementary to an Act, entitled an Act for 
the encouragement of Learning, by securing the copies of 
Maps, Charts, and Books, to the authors and proprietors 
of such copies, during the times therein mentioned, and 
extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, 
engraving, and etching historical and other prints." 

FRED. J. BETTS, 

Clerk of the Southern District of JN'ew York. 






OX THE SABBATH. 



Few will deny the utility and importance of the 
Christian Sabbath ; for it offers timely and need- 
ful rest to all the labouring classes of society. It 
promotes cleanliness, and ministers, in a very high 
degree, to health and intellectual improvement. 
It kindly remembers the working animals, and re- 
leases them, one day in seven, from their toils. 
It divides time into portions highly convenient for 
the transaction of worldly business ; and helps to 
regulate the vast and various intercourse of a 
great community. It restores the man of a thou- 
sand cares and perplexities, to the bosom of his 
family, and affords time for reading, for reflection, 
and for the religious instruction of children. It 
brings more gain to individuals and to the public, 
than could possibly be derived from unremitting 
application to secular employments. 

By its weekly return, it rebukes our worldli- 
ness ; and by bringing the rich and the poor so 
often together to worship God, and receive in- 
struction from his word, it tends exceedingly to 
remove prejudices, soften asperities, and elicit 
kindly feelings ; — also to check the growth of 
pride, avarice, and sensuality ; and on the other 
hand, to encourage truth, temperance, " brotherly 
kindness, and charity." Besides its mighty influence 
upon our immortal interests, the civil and politi- 
cal benefits of the Sabbath, are too many, and too 



great, to adroit of adequate estimation. It is a 
far surer guarantee for the perpetuity of our free 
institutions, than all the physical resources of the 
country. It is in short, the true palladium which 
protects the temple of liberty, as well as the ark 
jof the covenant. 

All this is admitted, (with what consistency we 
do not stop to inquire,) even by the great body of 
those, who are hostile to every proposed measure 
for rescuing the institution from desecration, and 
restoring to it the hallowed influence which it has 
lost With their full consent, you may speak of 
its benefits in the most unqualified terms, provided, 
always, however, that you do nothing to guard it 
from violation, or to protect yourself and family 
from disturbance in your most solemn devotions. 
The observance of the Sabbath is well, as far as 
it may happen to suit their inclinations and conve- 
nience, but no further. Thus what is acknow- 
ledged to be the general good, must be sacrificed 
to private cupidity and accommodation. 

With the sincere Christian, the case is widely 
different. Aside from the authority of Scripture, 
g sober conviction of the public utility of any in- 
stitution* must of course powerfully influence his 
practice Nor indeed, can we see how any patriot 
can ever trample upon an institution which he re- 
cognizes as a blessing to his country. Still there 
is a wide and manifest difference, between ques- 
tions of general expediency, and the dictates of 
the Holy Spirit ; and our ultimate appeal in behalf 
of the Sabbath, must be " to the law and the testi- 
mony." If the Scriptures do not require us to 
keep it holy, who shall presume to bind our con- 



sciences? But if, on the other hand, this is a 
divine precept of universal obligation, then the 
point is settled. It is as binding upon us as any 
other law of heaven, and we violate it at our 
peril. 

Is the Sabbath, then, of divine or human origin, 
and when was it instituted ? Was it intended for 
all mankind, or only for a part ? Which day of 
the week was originally appointed-, and for what 
reason ? Has the day since been changed, and 
if so, when, and for what reason ? And how is the 
Sabbath to be kept, or sanctified? These are 
questions which every person has a right to ask, 
nay, which every one is bound to ask, that his 
" faith may not stand in the wisdom of men, but 
in the power of God." 



QUESTION I. 

Is the Sabbath of divine, or human origin, and 
when was it instituted ? 

That the Sabbath was " from heaven and not 
of men," must be conceded by all, who read 
and believe the Bible. It was one of the earliest 
and richest gifts of God to man. The record of 
the institution, stands on the second page of the 
inspired volume, (Gen. ii. 2, 3,) and in these 
words : On the seventh day, God ended his work 
which he had made ; and he rested on the seventh 
day from all his work, which ke had made. And 
God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it : 
because that in it he had rested from all his work? 
t* 



6 



which God had created and made. This is the 
first, and as we shall maintain, and attempt to 
prove, is the only account of the original institution 
of the Sabbath, which the pen of inspiration has 
recorded. Wherever it is subsequently men- 
tioned, it is spoken of, not as a new enactment, 
but as a primary and standing law of the divine 
administration. 

But when, or at what time did God institute the 
Jloly Sabbath ? Those who are in the habit of 
reading the Scriptures just as they find them, and 
of understanding ihem according to the established 
rules of interpretation, will doubtless marvel that 
such a question should ever be asked. ' For can any 
thing, 1 ' they will demand, " be more explicit, than 
the passage just quoted ? Surely there is nothing 
ambiguous, either in the words themselves^ or in 
their connexion with the preceeding narrative. 
The plain account is, (nothing can possibly be 
plainer,) that when God had finished the great 
work of creation, he rested from it on the very 
next, or seventh day ; and that then he blessed the 
seventh day and sanctified it." Yes, we reply, 
this according to our understanding, is just what 
the sacred penman asserts ; nor do we believe that 
one man in a million, would think of putting any 
other construction upon the passage. Indeed no 
one, so far as we know, ever denied that this is the 
piost natural meaning. 

But then, it has been strangely argued, that this 
cannot be the true meaning ; and that the Sab- 
bath was not given to our first parents in paradise, 
because, as the objectors allege, "■ neither the ob- 
servance, nor even the existence of the institu- 



ijoii, is once mentioned, or so much as hinted at by 
Moses, after the supposed consecration, till the 
manna fell in the wilderness ; including a period of 
about 2500 years Many pious men, it is added, 
certainly lived within that period, who would have 
kept the Sabbath, had any such divine institution 
then existed ; and the fact would have been 
somewhere noticed by the sacred historian." 

Now, however plausible, or ingenious this rea- 
soning may appear, at the first glance, it will 
not bear examination. For what though we are 
nowhere told, in so many words, that the ante- 
diluvian, or the post-diluvian patriarchs observed 
a weekly Sabbath ? It is rendered highly proba- 
ble that they did, independently of considerations 
hereafter to be mentioned, from the division of 
time into weeks, which is not obscurely hinted 
at, in the history of that period. Thus, when 
the waters of the deluge had begun to subside, 
Noah sent out a dove which soon returned. At 
the end of seven days, he sent her out again ; 
and at the end of seven days more, he sent her 
out a third time. Now why this steady prefer- 
ence for the number seven ? Why did not the 
patriarch wait six days, or eight days, or anyother 
number ? Can it be supposed that his fixing upon 
seven and steadily adhering to it, was purely acci- 
dental ? How much more natural to conclude, that 
in obedience to the authority of God, as expressed 
in the passage already quoted, from the second 
chapter of Genesis, he observed, every seventh 
day as a Sabbath. * 

A similar division of time, is incidentally men- 
tioned in the twenty-ninth chapter of Genesis. 



H Fulfil her week, and we will give thee this also. 
And Jacob did so, and fulfilled his week." Now 
the word week is every where used in Scripture, 
just as we use it. It never means either more, or 
less, than seven days, and one of them was in all 
other cases the Sabbath. Why not in this also ? 
It cannot be admitted, therefore, that the sacred 
records of 2500 years contain no allusion to this 
subject. But what if they had been entirely si- 
lent ? It would not only be extremely illogical, 
to infer that the Sabbath was unknown and unre- 
garded, considering how very brief the history of 
that period is ; but the arguments which is at- 
tempted to be drawn from the alleged silence of 
the sacred writer, labours under this additional 
misfortune, that if it proves any thing, it proves 
too much. It equally proves, that the Sabbath 
was entirely unknown and unobserved, from the 
time of Joshua, till the reign of David ; as no 
mention is made of it in the history of that period. 
If mere silence is proof in one case, it is equally 
so in the other. But the truth is, that it proves 
nothing in either case. It will be admitted, that, 
beyond all doubt, the pious judges of Israel, "re- 
membered the Sabbath day, to keep it holy," 
though the observance is not once mentioned ; 
and so we say, that beyond all doubt, the patri- 
archs kept it before them, though the fact is not 
expressly stated by Moses. 

Equally fatal to this favourite argument of Dr. 
Paley, is the silence of the inspired volume, re- 
specting the rite of circumcision, from the death 
of Moses, or a little after, till the days of Jere* 



9 

miah ; for it is not so much as once named, or 
alluded to, during a period of more than 800 
years. Will it be said, can it possibly be believed, 
that Samuel and David, and all the pious kings 
and people — that the whole Jewish nation, utterly 
neglected that essential seal of the covenant, for 
eight centuries ? The supposition cannot be ad- 
mitted for a moment And how then can any fair 
reasoner argue, from the alleged silence of a por- 
tion of the sacred history, still more concise, that 
Enoch, and Noah, and Abraham, and Isaac, and 
Jacob, kept no Sabbath, because the fact is not 
expressly stated. Other examples having the same 
bearing on the question now before us, might be 
adduced ; but it cannot be necessary. It is a 
case, in which two, are as good as two hundred. 

Having thus, as we believe, fairly put to rest 
the objection against the early date of the Sab- 
bath, drawn from the alleged silence of the his- 
torian, we proceed to argue, that it certainly 
bears date from the creation of the world itself 

First, from the order of the narration. Having 
celebrated the handy work of the Creator, in a 
regular and connected narrative, from the first 
day, up to the sixth and last ; Moses proceeds in 
the same manner, without giving the least intima- 
tion of any change of time, or meaning, to finish 
the narrative, by recording, that on the seventh 
day God ?*ested from all his work, and that he 
blessed and sanctified the day. When did he 
rest ? On the seventh day, that is, the seventh 
day of the world. And if God's resting was a 
reason why men should rest at all, then it was a 



10 



reason why the holy observance of the Sabbath 
should commence at that time. 

Again ; the consecration of the Sabbath, evi- 
dently took place, on the very day when God 
rested from all his work, and not 2500 years, nor 
one year, nor one week afterward. If the Sabbath 
was instituted to commemorate the stupendous 
work of creation, (and who can doubt it,) what 
can be more improbable, (may we not say absurd,) 
than the supposition, that this commemorative or- 
dinance was never heard of, was not even ap- 
pointed, till the world was two thousand and five 
hundred years old ? 

How is it in all other parallel cases? The* 
miraculous deliverance of Israel from Egypt, was 
commemorated in the annual feast of the pass- 
over, from the very night of that great deliverance. 
In like manner, the independence of these United 
States, has been annually celebrated, from the date 
of the immortal declaration itself. And so it is 
with all those events, which are thought worthy 
of being commemorated in stated festivals, or 
other public observance. The celebration always 
commences at, or near the time of the event, which 
it is designed to perpetuate. How strange, how 
incredible the supposition then, that the solemn 
consecration of a day to commemorate the crea- 
tion of the world should form a solitary excep- 
tion. 

On this ground, we might safely rest the ques- 
tion, till some better reason than we have ever yet 
seen, can be offered, to invalidate the position 
which we have taken. But as so much depends 



11 

upon this point, we shall offer a few additional it - 
marks, to expose the weakness of the opposite 
side of the question. If the Sabbath was not in- 
stituted in paradise, nor till after the exodus from 
Egypt, what occasion had Moses to mention it at 
all, in connexion with his account of the creation? 
which took place between two and three thousand 
years before ? Why did he not wait, till, as Dr. 
Paley supposes, the Sabbath was actually institu- 
ted in the wilderness ; and there give it its proper 
place in the narrative ? Why place events side by 
side in the history, which according to the suppo- 
sition we are controverting, had no connexion in 
fact, but were separated by the mighty chasm of 
twenty-five centuries ! Surely, the spirit of God, 
never could have directed Moses to an arrange- 
ment in this solitary instance> so contrary to the 
regular order of the narration, and so much better 
calculated to mislead, than to instruct the reader. 
And yet the ingenuity of Paley could devise no 
better way to dispose of the passage which we 
have quoted from the second chapter of Genesis. 
It must, he thought, have been inserted there, not 
because the Sabbath was then instituted, but by 
way of a twenty-five hundred years' anticipation ! 
But let us see where this strange canon of in- 
terpretation will lead us. Is the creation of the 
world itself recorded in the first chapter of Gene- 
sis by way of anticipation ? It must be so, if Dr. 
Paley 's reasoning, in regard to the Sabbath, is 
correct. For the same inspired writer, who tells 
us that God said " Let there be light, and there 
was light," on the first day* and that Adam was 



m 

created on the sixth day, is equally explicit in de- 
claring, that on the seventh day, God rested from 
all his work, and blessed the seventh day, and 
sanctified it. There being no difference, there- 
fore, in the phraseology, we must suppose that the 
order of time is expressed in the latter case, as 
definitely as in either of the former. That is, if 
we understand the sacred historian to speak in 
the second chapter of Genesis, not of what actu- 
ally took place at the time, but of what was to be 
done, after the lapse of twenty-jive hundred years, 
then, to be consistent, we must suppose, that, in 
the first chapter, he speaks of man, not as being 
then created, but to be created, at some future, 
and far distant period. And so we shall have the 
heavens and the earth created, not at the time 
specified in the inspired narrative, but two or 
three thousand years afterward ; that is, after 
they were created ; and all this just by way of 
anticipation ! ! 

That the Sabbath was not first given to the 
Israelites in the wilderness, as a new institution, 
we argue — 

Secondly; from the very passage in the six- 
teenth chapter of Exodus, on which the main re- 
liance has been placed, to prove that no Sabbath 
was known to mankind till that time. " And it 
came to pass that on the sixth day, they gathered 
twice as much bread, (i. e twice as much manna, 
as on any preceding day,) two omers for one 
man ; and all the rulers of the congregation came 
and told Moses. And he said unto them, this is 
that which the Lord hath said, " to-morrow is the 



rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord ; bake thai 
which ye will bake, <$pc" 

The first question suggested by this passage is, 
Why did the people gather twice as much food on 
the sixth day, as they had gathered on the fourth, 
or the fifth ? It is possible, we admit, that they 
acted under the express direction of their inspired 
law-giver. But it does not appear from the histo- 
ry, that a syllable had been said to thern on the 
subject. And that they actually made this double 
provision, on the sixth day, of their own accord, 
we infer from two considerations. First — " The 
rulers went and told Moses," as if something un- 
expected had happened, which required his parti- 
cular attention Secondly — iVIoses answered 
them, just as if he had never alluded to the sub- 
ject before . This is that which the Lord hath 
said, Sec The probability arising from these cir- 
cumstances, is very strong, therefore, that the 
people had some previous knowledge of the Sab- 
bath, unless we can suppose, they foresaw that 
God, after giving mankind all their time for 2500 
years, was now about to fippropriate one seventh 
part to himself, and so resolved to anticipate him in 
the new arrangement ! 

Further ; our supposition, that the Jewish law- 
giver here speaks of the Sabbath, as an institution 
already known, though, peihaps, greatly neglected, 
and almost forgotten, is, we think, very much 
strengthened, by the phraseology of the passage 
just quoted tl This is that which the Lord hath 
said, to-morrotv is the rest of the holy Sabbath." 
It is not thus, that legislators are wont to speak 



14 

in the first promulgation of their enactments ; but 
it is precisely as men speak every day, of existing 
institutions. We say, familiarly, that " to-morrow 
is the Sabbath," because it is an old institution ; 
but if there never had been a Sabbath, and the 
supreme magistrate was about to appoint one by 
special statute, he would not say to-morrow is, 
but to-morrow shall be the Sabbath. The weekly 
rest, then, was appointed, and sanctified before 
the days of Moses. Have we any prior account 
of it ? We have. Where is it ? In the second 
chapter of Genesis, and nowhere else The 
Sabbath, then, was instituted in paradise, and was 
only revived, when the bread of heaven fell round 
about the camp in the wilderness. 

Thirdly; we are irresistibly led to the same 
conclusion, by the testimony of a long list of an- 
cient writers, not a tythe of which, however, can 
be brought within our narrow limits. We offer 
the following, just to acquaint our readers with 
the nature and variety of this testimony. 

Homer and Hesoid, both " speak of the seventh 
day as holy " 

Porphyry says, <l the Phoenicians consecrated 
one day in seven as holy." 

Philo says, that " the Sabbath is not a festival 
peculiar to any one people, or country, but is 
common to all the world ; and that it may be 
named the general and public feast, or the feast of 
the nativity of the world." 

Josephus affirms, " that there is no city, either 
of Greeks, or barbarians, or any other nation, 
where the religion of the Sabbath is not known." 



15 

Lampidius tells us, that Alexander Severus, the 
Roman emperor, usually went, on the seventh day, 
into the capitol, there to offer sacrifices to the 
gods. 

The learned Grotius tells us, '< that the memo- 
ry of the creation's being performed in seven 
days, was preserved, not only among the Greeks 
and Italians, but among the Celts and Indians, all 
of whom divided their time into weeks." The 
same is affirmed by other writers, of the Assy- 
rians, Egyptians, Arabians, Romans, Gauls,' Bri- 
tons, and Germans. 

And how, we would ask every candid reader, — 
how is this remarkable agreement of nations so 
remote from each other, and between many of 
whom, little, or no intercourse, ever existed, to be 
accounted for. Will it be said, that they were all 
originally indebted to the Jews for it ? By whom, 
then, was the Sabbath borrowed from that hated 
and despised people ? Would the Egyptians, after 
what happened at the Red Sea, permit themselves 
to be instructed by a nation thus hated, and whose 
civil and religious institutions they abhorred ? 
Would their mortal enemies, the Assyrians ? 
Would the fierce and independent tribes of Ara- 
bia ? Would those proud and mighty masters of 
the world, the Greeks and the Romans ? Nothing 
can be more improbable How, then, is the pro- 
blem to be solved ? By a recurrence to the ori- 
ginal institution of the Sabbath in paradise. God 
having given it to our first parents, it became 
known, of course, to all the antediluvian patri- 
archs. From Noah, the last of them, it was 
N handed down by tradition, through all the branches # 



16 

of his family; and thus, in process of time, the 
keowledge of it, though greatly obscured and 
mixed with fable, found its way into almost every 
part of the world, just as traditional accounts of 
the deluge were spread among all nations 

Our first question, then, is answe ed ; the Sab- 
bath is from God ; and the date of the institution 
is coeval with that of the world itself. 

QUESTION II. 

Was the Sabbath intended for all mankind, or 
only for a part ? 

Section i. 

That the Sabbath was not given to the Jews 
only, follows irresistibly from what has been al- 
ready proved. They had no existence when it 
was instituted. Even Abraham, the " father of 
them all,' was not born till 2000 years afterward. 
That it should be made peculiarly prominent, in 
the history of that nation, was natural, and even 
necessary, from the circumstance, that to them 
" pertained the adoption, and the glory, and the 
covenants and the giving the law, and the service 
of Cod, and the promises." !f any other people 
had been chosen, instead of the Israelites, the 
Sabbath would unquestionably have been made 
eqiully prominent in their ecclesiastical polity. 
It could not be intended for one nation, more than 
another, because it was given to Adam, the great 
progenitor of the whole human family, andj 
# through him, to all his posterity. 



17 



If the Sabbath was needful for one branch of the 
human family* as a day of rest and religious im- 
provement, it was needful for all. If the obser- 
vance of it, was eminently calculated to promote 
the temporal and spiritual good of the Jewish na- 
tion, it is not less calculated to promote the good 
of all other nations And if it was enjoined and 
sanctified, as a holy commemorative ordinance, 
from the foundation of the world, it must, in the very 
nature of the case be obligatory upon all mankind. 

Two great institutions originated from infinite 
authority in paradise ; — viz. marriage and the 
weekly Sabbath. Was the ordinance of marriage 
temporary, or perpetual ? Was it intended for 
one nation only or for all nations ? And from 
what date, we beg leave digressively to inquire, 
did the law become obligatory, from the date of 
the statute itself, or from some recognition of it, 
two or three thousand years later ? Surely that 
man's logic, would be regarded with great suspi- 
cion, who should maintain, that the institution of 
marriage, was meant to be obligatory upon a sin- 
gle nation only ; and that only, in some far distant 
futurity ! And with what better credibility, we 
ask, can it be maintained, that the Sabbath, the 
other great primitive institution so often men- 
tioned,^ was made obligatory only upon a mere 
fraction of the human family ? 

Section ii. 

It is a settled principle, in all governments, that 
there are but two ways, in which any law can cease 
to be binding upon the people. It may expire by 



18 

its own limitations, or it may be repealed by the 
same authority which enacted it ; and in the lat- 
ter case, the repealing act must be as explicit, as 
that by which the obligation was originally im- 
posed. Now, we have it in proof, that the Sab- 
bath was instituted by the infinite lawgiver in 
Paradise. In priority of time, it stands at the 
heid of all his enactments. It is the very first 
statute, in that divine code of laws, which he has 
promulgated in the Bible, Of course, it has an 
autho.ity entirely independent of the Jewish ritual, 
and was no more a part of that system, which 
has " waxed old and vanished away " than the 
sixth commandment is 

The law of the Sabbath can never expire by 
its own limitations ; and for the plainest of all 
reasons, that it has no limitations. And God 
hhssed the seventh day and sanctified it, because 
that in it he had rested from all his work, which 
God created and made Now if this solemn act 
made the Sabbath binding upon mankind at all, it 
made the obligation universal and perpetual, as 
no limitation, or exemption is hinted at. If the 
so'emn consecration of one seventh part of time, 
made it the duty of our first parents to keep it 
holy, it clearly imposes the same duty upon their 
posterity ; no intimation, as we have already ob- 
served, being given, that the sacred rest was in- 
tended for a part of mankind only, or was to be 
observed only for a limited period. The law then, 
still remains in force, and must, to the end of time, 
unless God himself has seen fit, or shall here- 
after see fit, to repeal it, there being no other an- 



19 

thority in the universe, which may strike out a 
letter of it. 

Has God abrogated the law ? If he has, the 
place can easily be found by our opponents ; and 
let hem point it out to us ; for we confess, that 
we have never seen the passage What if they can 
show us. that the ceremonial law has been ex- 
pressly annulled ? It is nothing to the purpose, 
for the weekly Sabbath existed independently of 
that law. What if they can prove, that the 
Jewish Sabbath was never binding upon Gentile 
converts at all ? Neither does this touch the 
question. The chapter and verse must be pointed 
out, in which the law is expressly repealed. No- 
thing else will satisfy a candid inquirer. 

If the repealing act is anywhere recorded in the 
Bible, it is, either in Rom. xiv 5 6; or in Col- 
li IB, 37. No one, we believe, pretends to place 
much stress upon any other passage. Let these 
then be carefully examined, not as independent 
texts, but in connexion with the obvious design 
and scope of the apostle's reasoning. The text 
in Roman? is this. One man esteemeth one day 
above another ; another esteernetJi every day alike. 
Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. 
He that regardeth the day regardeth it unto 
the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day to the 
Lord, he doth not regard it. Does the apostle 
here mean to say, that under the new, or Chris- 
tian dispensation, it is a matter of indifference 
which day of the week is kept as a Sabbath, or 
whether any Sabbath at all is kept ? Surely those 
who thus construe his meaning, " do greatly err. 
not knowing the Scriptures." 



20 

Every attentive reader of the New Testament, 
must have observed, that for some years after the 
resurrection of Christ ; the Jewish and Christian 
dispensations were, in practice, blended together ; 
the former being gradually abolished * and the 
latter, as gradually brought in to take its place. 
Hence arose many of those unhappy disputes, 
which disturbed the harmony of the primitive 
churches. Many of the Jewish converts, not only 
adhered strenuously themselves to their ancient 
ritual, but insisted upon the conformity of Gentile 
converts ; — while these last as strenuously main- 
tained, that since the ceremonial law was abolished, 
no further regard to its prescription of meats, days, 
&c. was either necessary, or even allowable. To 
settle these disputes, and inspire the parties with 
mutual charity and forbearance, the apostle took up 
the question in form, and disposed of it in the 
following wise and catholic manner. " Him that 
is weak in the faith receive ye ; but not to doubt- 
ful disputation. For one believeth that he may 
eat all things. Another that is weak, eateth herbs. 
Let not him that eateth, despise him that eateth 
not ; and let not him which eateth not, judge him 
that eateth ; for God hath received him. Who 
art thou that judgest another man's servant? 
To his own master he standeth or falleth ; yea, he 
shall be holden up, for God is able to make him 
stand. One man esteemeth one day above another; 
another esteemeth every day alike. Let every 
man be fully persuaded in his own mind He 
that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord. 
And he that regardeth not the day to the Lord, he 
doth not regard it. He that eateth, eateth to the 



Lord ; for he giveth God thanks ; and he that 
eateth not to the Lord, he eateth not. and giveth 
God thanks " 

Now, it is plain, from every word of this v 
quotation, that the inspired umpire refers ex- 
pressly to the existing controversy, refpectir^-* 
the ceremonial law ; and not at all to the ques- 
tion, whether the Sabbath was abolished, or not. 
Indeed it seems extremely doubtful, whether 
the passage contains the slightest reference to 
the weekly Sabbath. The re'igous observance 
of many other days, was strictly enjoined in the 
Levitical code* All that can fairly be gathered, 
therefore, from this quotation is, that Chistians in 
the early part of the apostolic age, might, or 
might not keep those feast days : — that is, might 
act according to the dictates of their own con- 
sciences, if one man thought that he was bound 
to observe any particular day, let him observe, it ; 
but without censuring his brother who might be 
of a different opinion. Let every man be fully 
persuaded in his own mind, and act accordingly. 
The law of the Sabbath then is not repealed 
here. 

Is it repealed in Col. ii [5, 16, to which we have 
alreadv referred ? Let no wan. therefore, judge you 
in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy d >y, or 
of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days, which are 
a shadow of things to come ; but the body is of 
Christ. " Here then," some have triumphantly 
alleged, " is the repealing act : and the Sabbath, 
as a divine institution, is no more !" Wo to the 
world if it be so. But to this construction, which 



strikes at the foundation of all Christian institu- 
tions, three distinct answers are ready. 

In the first place, it takes for granted the very 
thing to be proved ; — viz. that the apostle is here 
speaking of the weekly Sabbath ; when it is all 
but certain, we think, that he has no allusion to 
it. The plural form, Sabbath days, which is here 
adopted, rarely if ever occurs in Scripture, when 
the original institution is intended. But there 
were other Sabbaths which the Jews were required 
to keep ; as for example, the first day of the 
seventh month, and also the tenth day of the same, 
throughout their generations. See Lev. xxxiii. 
"And the Lord spake unto Moses saying, speak 
unto the children of Israel, saying, in the seventh 
month in the first day of the month, shall ye have 
a Sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, an 
holy convocation. Ye shall do no servile work 
therein- Also, on the tenth day of this seventh 
month, there shall be an atonement It shall be 
unto you a Sabbath of rest, and ye shall afflict 
your souls." That these ceremonial Sabbaths, 
and not the holy rest of paradise are referred to, 
in the passage above quoted, is made nearly, if 
not quite certain, bf thle fact, that all the other 
things specified, such as meat, drink, the new 
moon, &c* are ceremonial, At any rate, the con- 
trary can never be proved. To assert, therefore, 
that the repealing act is found here, is, we repeat, 
a mere begging of the question. This is our first 
answer. 

Secondly, allowing for argument's sake, that the 
apostle had the Jewish seventh day Sabbath in 



23 

Ins eye, and meant to release the Christian church 
from keeping that particular day, what does it 
amount to ? To an abrogation of the Sabbath 
itself, or merely to a change of the day. which 
however, in (he twilight of the Gospel dispensa- 
tion, was not authoritatively enjoined '? The lat- 
ter, (if the apostle alludes to the original institu- 
tion at all,) we take to be the true meaning. A 
conscientious Jew. who still adhered to the 
seventh day of the week, would be accepted, as 
well as the converted Gentile, who kept the first 
day. This is our second answer. 

The third, may be given chiefly in the words 
of an able foreign writer. " It is evident from 
the context," he observes, " that the apostle 
was speaking of the ordinances of the ceremonial 
law, for the neglect of which, no Christian was to 
be condemned. Blotting out the hand writing of 
ordinances that teas against us, which wa<s con- 
trary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it 
to his cross. Let no man therefore, judge you in 
meat, or drink, fyc. — or of the Sabbath days In 
this passage, the apostle is clearly speaking of 
burdensome ordinances ; of something that was 
against them, and contrary to the spirit of the 
Gospel. But can any pious person conceive, that 
the spending one day in seven in spiritual ser- 
vices, could be ranked by the holy apostle, 
among the things which were against Christianity 
and contrary to it ? Was that institution which 
the people of God had been commanded to call 
" a delight, the holy of the Lord and honour- 
able,' ' now to be esteemed of so carnal a nature, 
bo ranked amongst the thing's which Christ 



^4 

took out of the way, nailing it to his cross I 
Were those holy persons who had been accus- 
tomed to adopt the language of the Psalmist, <• I 
was glad when they said unto me, let us go into 
the house of the Lord," now taught to esteem a 
day spent in such services, as a part of that 
yoke, which neither the apostles nor their fithers 
were able to bear ? We must destroy all just 
ideas of the effects which the preaching of the 
Gospel was intended to produce, before we can 
adopt such an interpretation of the apostle's 
words." 

Where then is the repealing act ? for surely it- 
is not contained in either of the passages which 
we have examined. Let those who deny the 
perpetuity of the Sabbath tell us where But 
they cannot find the abrogation which they so 
anxiously seek. Here we might take our final 
stand in defence of the sacred institution ; for 
God consecrated the Sabbath by his own autho- 
rity and example, as soon as he had built the 
world, and breathed into man the breath of life. 
The law has no limitations, and, therefore, can 
never expire. It has never been repealed ; and, 
as the sacred canon is full and complete, we are 
certain it never will be. It is, therefore, binding 
upon every one of us at this moment ; and will 
be upon all future generations. No human au- 
thority may expunge a single word from the sta- 
tutes of Jehovah. It were infinitely less daring, 
for the meanest subject of the greatest earthly 
potentate, to declare the fundamental laws of the 
empire null and void, than for man, who is a 
worm, to set aside the institutions of his Maker. 



Section hi. 

We derive an independent, and* as it appears 
to us, irrefragable argument in support of the 
Sabbath, from the fourth commandment. " Re- 
member the Sabbath-day to keep it holy ; six days 
shalt thou labour, and do all thy work ; but the 
seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God ; 
in it, thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, 
nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid- 
servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is 
within thy gates ; for in six days the Lord made 
heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, 
and rested the seventh day : wherefore, the Lord 
blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it," 

The first thing which strikes the mind in read- 
ing over this passage, is, that it is extremely ex- 
plicit and particular. It recognizes the previous 
existence of the Sabbath, in the word remember; 
and strictly enjoins the observance of it upon 
somebody The single question is, upon whom ? 
If upon the Jews only as a part of their ceremo- 
nial law. then it has no claim upon us. But if the 
command was not intended to be thus confined 
in its application, it must doubtless be understood 
in the most general sense ; and is, of course, 
binding wherever it is promulgated. 

The next question is, to what code of laws 
does this command belong, and what peculiar cir- 
cumstances attended its promulgation ? Turning 
to the twentieth chapter of Exodus, and onward, 
we find, that two distinct codes were written 
out and given to the people of Israel at Mount 
Sinai. The first was written by God himself, on 



2b 

tables of stone ; and the other was taken down 
from his mouth, and recorded by Moses. One is 
called the moral law ; and the other, the ceremo- 
nial, or Levitical law. The latter, it is agreed on 
all hands, has " vanished away." But the fourth 
commandment, just quoted, is one of the ten, 
which were written on stone by the finger of God. 
The other nine are indisputably of universal and 
perpetual obligation. They are as strongly bind- 
ing upon us, as they were upon the men who be- 
held the fires, and felt the quakings of Sinai. 
And how is it with the fourth, which enjoins the 
sanctification of the Sabbath* " If it is not 
equally obligatory upon all men, why was it en- 
graved by the same divine hand, and on the same 
enduring tables ?" There was no apparent ne- 
cessity for it. It might just as easily have been 
incorporated into the other system, which was de- 
signed to be temporary ; and who can doubt, that 
it would have been, if the law-giver had intended 
that it should ever "wax old and vanish away." 
Surely it was never his design to mislead us by 
presenting the law of the Sabbath to us, in most 
intimate connexion with all the moral precepts 
of the decalogue. Suppose that a wise and be- 
nevolent human legislator were to promulgate two 
separate codes of laws, the one temporary, and 
the other perpetual ? Would he, without any 
explanation, take one important statute, which be- 
longed to the former, and incorporate it into the 
latter." And can it be believed, for a moment, 
that God ever intended so to bewilder his account- 
able creatures ? Here, then, is the moral law. 
It is a decalogue* It contains ten commandments . 



11 

They were all written twice, by the infinite Legis- 
lator himself, on tables of stone. The keeping of 
the Sabbath is expressly enjoined by the fourth. 
There is no intimation, that this was ever to be- 
come obsolete, any more than the fifth, or the se- 
venth. In short, it stands just where God, in his 
infinite wisdom, saw fit to place it, and whom has 
he authorized to strike it out ? Let the man who 
w r ould do it, show his authority. It must be ex- 
press, and not inferential, or constructive. But 
no such authority, we are confident, can ever be 
produced. God never meant that his law should 
be mutilated and weakened, to release his rebel- 
lious subjects from their allegiance. There is, 
we conceive, no less temerity, upon the face of the 
deed, in obliterating the fourth commandment, or, 
which amounts to the same thing . in denying its 
present obligation, than there would be in striking 
out any other section of the decalogue. 

But then it is said, that while the other nine 
commandments are strictly moral, that is, are 
founded upon the immutable relations of mankind 
to God, and to each other, the fourth is a positive 
rather than a moral precept, and, of course, stands 
on different ground. This is Dr. Paley's evasion. 

Let us examine it for a moment. Positive pre- 
cepts are of two kinds ; — such as impose obliga- 
tions upon moral beings in reference to something 
whicTi is, in itself indifferent ; or such as require 
certain duties which were antecedently unknown, 
and would have remained so, but for the precept 
which enjoins them. " These last, are no less of 
a moral nature, than if the duties and the rela- 



lions from which they spring, had always beet 
perfectly known. 5 

But take the strongest case possible. Suppose 
that antecedently to the command of God, no 
reason whatever had existed for keeping a Sabbath, 
any more than for abstaining from the forbidden 
tree, would not the positive annunciation of Je- 
hovah have been as imperative in one case as the 
other ? And under such a positive enactment as 
long as it remained in force, would not it have 
been the duty of all to whom the command was 
addressed to obey ? Could any man have excused 
himself by saying, this is not a moral, but only a 
positive institution ? Here then, is a divine pre- 
cept. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy ; 
and in regard to this point we adopt the same rea- 
soning which was pursued in the last section. 
Before the authority of any law of heaven can 
cease, it must either be repealed by God himself, 
or expire by its own limitations. The fourth 
commandment, whether it be moral or positive, has 
not expired, has not been repealed, and of course 
is still binding upon every conscience, 

But the Sabbath is not a mere positive institu- 
tion That it is in the most important sense mo- 
ral, is evident as the late President D wight well 
observes, from the following considerations. 

" It was intended to give the laborious classes 
of mankind an opportunity of resting from toil." 

" It was intended to be a commemoration of 
the wisdom, power and goodness of God, in the 
creation of the universe-" 

" It was intended to furnish an opportunity of 
increasing holiness in man, while in a state of 
innocence." 



29 



* It was intended to furnish an opportunity to 
fallen man, of acquiring holiness, and of obtaining 
salvation." 

" In every one of these respects, the Sabbath is 
equally useful, important, and necessary to every 
child of Adam, It was no more necessary to a 
Jew to rest after the labour of six days was ended, 
than to any other person. It was no more neces- 
sary to a Jew, to commemorate the perfections of 
God, displayed in the works of creation ; it was 
no more necessary to a Jew to obtain holiness, or 
to increase in it ; it is no more necessary to a Jew 
to seek or to obtain salvation. Whatever makes 
either of these things interesting to a Jew in any 
degree, makes them in the same degree interest- 
ing to any other man. The nature of the com- 
mand, therefore, teaches as plainly, as the nature 
of a command can teach, that it is of universal 
application to mankind. It has then, this great 
criterion of a moral precept, viz. universality of 
application"* 

Again, that the fourth commmandmentis still in 
force, and will be, to the end of the world, is mani- 
fest from the following declarations of Christ him- 
self, in his sermon on the mount. Think not 
that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets : 
I am not come to destroy \ but to fulfil. For I say 
unto you, till heaven and earth pass one jot or one 
tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be 
fulfilled. That our Saviour speaks here, not of 
the ceremonial, but of the moral law, we gather 
with certainty, from his proceeding in this very 

* See Dwight's system, Vol. 4, Ser. 105. 

3* 



30 

communication, to expound the sixth, seventh, and 
eighth commandments. Now if he had intended 
to abrogate one of the longest sections of the law, 
would he have disclaimed all intention of touching 
a word, or letter of it ? It cannot be. But if he 
left it just as he found it, and if we have his 
divine pledge that no part of the law shall fail, 
then is the Sabbath a perpetual institution. 

Further, we infer the perpetuity of the fourth 
commandment from Rom iii. 31. Do we then 
7/ffike void the law through faith ? God forbid ; 
yea, we establish the law. What law? Not the 
Jewish ritual, for it had already " waxed old and 
vanished away." It was the moral law, then, 
which the apostles by their doctrines established. 
And what is it to establish any law ? Is it not to 
preserve every section of it inviolate ? But it 
could never have been said that the moral law 
was established through faith, if an essential 
part of it had been annulled by the bringing in of 
the gospel dispensation. 

Finally, the very position of the fourth com- 
mandment, or the place which it occupies in the 
decalogue, is, we thmk, strongly corroborative of 
the foregoing conclusions. The first three com- 
mandments prescribe the duties which we owe to 
God ; the last six, the duties which we owe to 
our fellow men ; and the Sabbath stands between 
them, as the connecting link, — as the main pillar 
and support of the whole system. Without this 
divine bond of union neither piety to God, nor 
love to man, can long be preserved in the world. 

Or, as an old writer rather quaintly , but forci- 
bly remarks. " The fourth commandment is put 



*-> 1 



into the bosom of the decalogue, that it might not 
be lost ; it is the golden clasp, which joins the two 
tables together ; it is the sinew in the body of 
laws, which were written with God's own finger ; 
it is the intermediate precept, which participates 
of the sanctity of both tables ; and the due ob- 
servance of which, is the fulfilling of the whole 
law." Such a kt clasp who shall venture to break? 
Such a " sinew 1 * who can attempt to sever with 
impunity ! 

Section, iv. 

It is to our minds, a delightful and conclusive 
argument in favour of the Sabbath, that it was 
given to man in his primitive holiness, and is to 
be perpetually kept in heaven. 

1. It was given to man before his apostacy. 
We should have been apt to think, perhaps, that 
while our first parents retained their primitive in- 
nocence, it would answer no valuable purpose 
to enjoin upon them the religious observance 
of any particular day, inasmuch as they were dis- 
posed to spend every day in the service of their 
Creator. The Sabbath they could not need, as a 
season of rest, for their labour, if labour it might 
be called, was most easy and invigorating. It was 
only to dress the garden and keep it. No more 

toil, as the Prince of Epic Poets expresses it, 

- 

Than sufficed 
To recommend cool zephyrs, and made ease 
More easy ; wholesome thirst and appetite 
More grateful. 



;*2 

God, however, was pleased to enjoin, even upon 
them, a weekly intermission of their delightful 
care of plants and flowers, that nothing might di- 
vert their minds from the far more animating du- 
ties of praise and adoration. And had they kept 
their first estate, and remained in paradise for ever, 
the same reasons which made it proper for them to 
observe the Sabbath at all, would have made the 
duty and the privilege perpetual. Or had they 
lived a thousand years in perfect holiness, and then 
been translated, they would have gone from the 
enjoyment of earthly Sabbaths to an eternal rest. 
For, 

2. Heaven is a place of rest. It is that holy 
Sabbatism, which " remaineth to the people of 
God ;" and of which the weekly Sabbath is evi- 
dently a type. In heaven, there will be no toil, 
no bodily wants to supply, no fatigue demanding 
repose, no wasting, or flagging of the immortal 
energies of the blessed. And yet, they will rest 
for ever. They will keep an endless Sabbath. 
They will spend a blissful and ever-brightening 
eternity, in celebrating the perfections of God — 
the works and glories of the Lamb. 

And can it be, that he who gave the Sabbath * 
to our first parents, as soon as he had created 
them, and will give an eternal Sabbatism to all 
his people in heaven, has left a wide chasm any 
where between the earthly paradise and the celes- 
tial ? Was the rest which God ordained below, 
a type of that above ? It is the nature of every 
type, to continue until it is superseded by the anti- 
type. Thus it was with all the typical institutions 
of the Jewish ritual. Thev continued till Christ, 



the great anti-type, came, and then they disap- 
peared. And thus the earthly Sabbath must con- 
tinue, till it shall be superceded by the heavenly. 

For the same reason, that it was the duty and 
the privilege of the first human pair to keep the 
Sabbath before the apostacy, would it have been 
the duty and privilege of all their posterity, had 
sin never entered the world. But how much more 
do their depraved children, in every land and every 
age, need stated seasons of rest from the laborious 
employments to which they are doomed. How 
much more do they, who have lost the image of 
God, and are prone, continually, to forget their 
obligations and dependance, need the leisure and 
the solemn stillness of the Sabbath, to recall them 
from their wanderings, and assist them in their 
preparations for heaven. Had man, in his primi- 
tive state, been totally depraved, and since 
been made perfectly holy, as Adam was ; had the 
Sabbath, moreover, been given him in his original 
sinful state, it might have been plausibly argued, 
that since the happy renovation, such an institution 
can no longer be necessary. But what can be 
more absurd, than to adopt the reverse of this ar- 
gument, and say, that the sacred rest which God 
gave to man in his innocency, has ceased to be 
needful, or obligatory, since the apostasy ! And 
yet this is the absurd conclusion, to which all the 
arguments against the perpetuity of the Sabbath 
unavoidably lead. 

We might, as we draw toward the close of 
this part of the discussion, avail ourselves of 
several arguments, drawn from the application 
of ancient prophecies to gospel times. And 



34 

we might dwell upon the direction of Christ to his 
disciples, " Pray ye, that your flight be not in the 
winter, neither on the Sabbath day;''' for the 
event to which he alluded, was not to happen 
till forty years afterward ; and if there was then 
to be a Sabbath, it could not have been abolished, 
with the ceremonial law. But it really seems to 
us, that more than enough has been said already. 
For if God instituted the Sabbath in paradise, and 
has not now abrogated it, then must it be perpetual. 
If it is a constituent part of the moral law, then 
must it be perpetual If not, one jot or one tittle 
can ever pass from the law, then must the Sabbath 
be perpetual. If the law is established through 
faith, then must the Sabbath be perpetual. And 
if the earthly Sabbath is typical of the heavenly, 
then must it be perpetual, 

QUESTION III. 

Which day of the week ivas originally appointed 
to be kept, and for what reason ? 

As this is not a controverted question, it 
will detain us but a moment. The first point 
is settled in these express words. " And on* 
the seventh day God ended his work which he had 
made ; and he rested on the seventh day from all 
his work which he had made. And God blessed 
the seventh day, and sanctified it." The same 
day is specified in the recognition, or re-enact- 
ment of the Sabbath, at Mount Sinai. " Six days 
shalt thou labour, and do all thy work ; but the 
seventh, is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God/' 



Indeed, wherever the weekly Sabbath is mentioned 
in the Old Testament, the seventh day of the week 
is intended. Jesus Christ, himself, kept the same 
day during his public ministry ; and the Jews, iri 
every part of the world, where they have been 
scattered, still adhere to it as the true and only 
Sabbath. 

The reason for the original sanctification of the 
9eventh day, is no less distinctly specified, than the 
designation itself. " And God blessed the seventh 
day, and sanctified it, because that in it he had 
rested from all his work." So in the fourth com- 
mandment — " For in six days the Lord made hea- 
ven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and 
rested the seventh day ; wherefore the Lord blessed 
the Sabbath day, and hallowed it." Here, we see, 
that the seventh day was set apart, rather than the 
sixth, the first, or any other, because that God 
himself rested on that day, or ceased from the 
work of creation. It was to keep in remembrance 
that stupendous work, and to excite mankind to 
celebrate the glorious attributes of wisdom, power, 
and benevolence, which were displayed in its pro- 
gress and completion, that this particular arrange- 
ment was made. And what other could have 

been so appropriate?- Surely, if any solemn 

commemoration at all was demanded, or was 
proper, it was suitable that it should begin on 
the very day, when " the morning stars sang to- 
gether, and all the sons of God shouted for joy ;' 5 
and that the same day of the week, should be de- 
voted to holy rest, meditation, and praise, till some 
greater work thanjtliat of creation, should be ac- 
complished, and demand a similar commemoration, 



36 



QUESTION IV. 

Has the day been changed, since the Sabbath was 
instituted, and, if so, when, and for what reason? 

On this question, we offer the following preli- 
minary remarks : 

First. Whatever may be the true answer, it 
will not, in the least, affect the validity of those 
arguments, which have been already adduced. 
They stand on entirely independent ground ; so 
that if we should fail of proving, that the day has 
been changed, it would not touch the other great 
question, in regard to the perpetuity of the Sab- 
bath, which has been argued upon its own merits. 
If we have proved, that the institution was from 
the beginning, and is to last till the end of time, 
nothing which can be said here, will invalidate the 
proof; and if we have failed there, nothing here 
will help it. 

Secondly. Those who question the change of 
the Sabbath, from other motives than a conscien- 
tious persuasion that they are still bound to keep * 
the seventh day, would do well to consider what 
' they have to gain by proving, if they could prove, 
that the day is now the same, as it was in the time 
of Moses. It cannot be uncharitable to suppose, 
that with some of them, this is a mere evasive ex- 
pedient, to get rid of the Sabbath altogether. 
But the day has either been changed, or it has 
not. If it has been changed., they are bound to 



conform to that change. If it has not, then they 
are bound to keep the original, or seventh day* 
So that whether it has been changed, or not, they 
are equally bound to keep one seventh part of 
time as holy, which is the very conclusion they 
wish to avoid. But let them be consistent, and 
either keep the seventh day, or come out at once, 
and deny that any day is obligatory. 

Thirdly ; the fourth commandment is so ex- 
pressed, as to admit of a change in the day, with- 
out at all affecting the sacred institution itself; 
and this phraseology, we doubt not, was adopted 
by the divine Law-giver, with special reference to 
such a change. u Remember the Sabbath day, to 
keep it holy. The seventh day is the Sabbath. 
In six days the Lord made heaven and earth*— 
wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day. and 
hallowed it." The seventh day is the Sabbath. 
It was so at that time, and for many ages after, 
But it is not said, that it always shall be. 

Besides ; according to the first clause of the 
commandment, it is the Sabbath day which we are 
to remember ; and so at the close, it was the 
Sabbath, which was hallowed and blessed, and not 
the seventh day. The Sabbath, then, the holy rest 
itself, is one thing ; the day on which we are to 
rest, is quite another. As the day might be changed? 
without any prejudice to that in which the Sabbath 
essentially consists, we are left at full liberty to 
inquire, yea it is our duty to inquire, whether the 
day has actually been changed by competent au- 
thority. 

Fourthly ; though it would require an express 
statute, to abrogate an institution so prominent 
4 



38 

as the holy Sabbath, something short of this may 
be sufficient, to indicate a change from one day to 
another. Thus, if it can be shown, that similar 
reasons now exist for keeping the first day of the 
week, 'to those which originally existed for keeping 
the seventh ; if it can be made to appear, that 
such a change was foreseen, and distinctly alluded 
to by the ancient Jewish prophets ; if it can be 
shown, that Christ himself, after his resurrection, 
gave the sanction of his own example to the 
change ; if it can be shown, that the apostles 
kept the first day of the week, and could not have 
been mistaken as to the propriety of the change ; 
that the churches which they planted, were accus- 
tomed to assemble on the first day for public wor- 
ship ; that God early consecrated it in a peculiar 
manner, by the effusions of his Spirit ; that the 
phange was recognized as authoritative by the 
most ancient Christian fathers ; and that the first 
day of the week has been remarkably distinguish- 
ed by the bestowment of spiritual blessings, down 
to our own times ; — if these things can be proved, 
from Scripture, from the earliest ecclesiastical 
records, and from undeniable facts, it is presumed, 
the propriety of Christian usage throughout the 
world, in accordance with such views, and such ' 
proofs, will not be disputed. 

But can such evidence be adduced ; or, in other 
words, has the first day been substituted for the se- 
venth, by divine authority ; and, if so, when and for 
what reason ? This is the question now to be tried. 
That the day has been changed ; that the change 
took place at the resurrection of Christ, to com- 



39 

memorate that event, and the completion of the 
work of redemption, we argue, 

In the first place ; from the analogy which 
exists between that stupendous work and the 
original creation ; that the redemption of fallen 
man was a greater work than making the world, 
must, we think, appear evident to any one who 
will consider that both were accomplished by 
Jesus Christ ; — John i. 3. " The world was made 
by him, and without him was not any thing made 
that was made." Col. i. 16. " By him were all 
things created, that are in heaven and that are 
in earth, visible and invisible." Heb. i. 8, 10. 
" But unto the Son he saith, thy throne, O God, 
is for ever and ever. And thou, Lord, in the be- 
ginning, hast laid the foundations of the earth ; 
and the heavens are the work of thy hands." 
How stupendous, how glorious were these works ! 
And yet the work of redemption excels them 
all in glory. The heavens and the earth were 
made by the word of his power ; the souls of men 
were redeemed by the shedding of his blood. 
When worlds were to be brought into being, 
" He spake, and it was done ;" but when man 
was to be " saved from going down to the pit," 
and " created in righteousness and true holiness," 
his soul was in an agony ; the nails were in his 
hands and his feet ; his expiring cry went up from 
the cross, and universal nature shuddered at the 
spectacle. 

Now, if the seventh day was originally set apart 
and sanctified, "because that in it God rested 
from all his work," does not the redemption of a 
irreat multitude which no man can number, whipli 



40 

was finished on the first day, demand a similar 
commemoration ? If it was suitable that creative 
power and wisdom should be celebrated with 
thanksgiving every seventh day, from the creation 
to the resurrection of Christ, can it be less so, 
that redeeming love and mercy should be cele- 
brated in a similar manner, every first day of the 
week, from the resurrection till the end of the 
world ? Surely, if in every view, the work of re- 
demption has the pre-eminence, it ought to bis 
kept in grateful and everlasting remembrance, by 
a holy appropriation of the day on which it was 
consummated. 

Secondly ; the ancient Jewish prophets evi- 
dently saw the day of Christ's final triumph, and 
were glad. Is. xi. 10. "And in that day there 
shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an 
ensign of the people ; to it shall the Gentiles 
seek ; and his rest shall be glorious." May there 
not be an allusion here to the Gospel Sabbath, as 
well as to the rest and prosperity of the church 
in the latter day ? — " His rest shall be glori- 
ous ;" that is, the day on which Christ rested 
from all his work, as God did from his. Isa. 
Ixvi. 22, 23, " For as the new heavens and the 
new earth which I will make shall remain before 
me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your 
name remain. And it shall come to pass, that 
from one new moon to another, and from one 
Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to wor- 
ship before me, saith the Lord." This prophecy, 
beyond all question, refers to the prosperous state 
of the church, under the millennial reign of Mes- 
siah, the most glorious period of that new dispen- 



41 

sation, which seems to be shadowed forth, under 
the emblem of new heavens and a new earth. 
The church is then to have her ministers, so- 
lemnities, sabbaths and holy ordinances, as she 
had under the Levitical priesthood ; and as every 
service will then refer directly to Christ, may we 
not infer that the church will keep her sabbaths 
on that day which commemorates his resurrec- 
tion from the dead." But however this may be, 
one thing is clear ; — the Sabbath will then be 
observed by the people of God ; and of course it 
was not abolished with the ceremonial law, but 
belongs to the new dispensation, as certainly as it 
did to the old.* 

A more explicit prediction than any other, per- 
haps, touching the change of the Sabbath, is con- 
tained in the cxviii. Ps. " The stone which the 
builders refused, is become the headstone of the 

Note by the Committee : — President Humphrey hafc 
well intimated, that the new creation or work of re- 
demption was a greater and more glorious work than the 
first creation. This appears to be fully confirmed by the 
figurative representation of the new heavens and new 
earth that was to be created, as predicted by Isaiah lxv. 
17 and 18. " For behold, I create new heavens and a 
new earth, and the former shall not be remembered nor 
come into mind. But be ye glad and rejoice for ever in 
that I create ; for behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, 
and her people a joy." It is more than intimated, that 
the celebration of the first creation, the first heavens and 
fir?t earth shall cease, and be no longer commemorated, 
because the new creation, so far exceeds in glory, that it 
shall become a theme of celebration and everlasting joy, 
44 This is the day the Lord has made ; we will be glad 
and reioice in it." 

4* 



corner. Tliis is the Lord's doing, -and it is mar- 
vellous in our eyes. This is the day ivhich the 
Lord hath made ; ive ivill rejoice and be glad in 
it" This passage is quoted and applied to 
Christ, no less than six times in the New Testa- 
ment. That it refers to his resurrection and 
exaltation no one can doubt. On what day did 
he rise from the dead ? On the first day of the 
week. Does the psalmist refer to the very day of 
his triumph, or to some other day ? To that glo- 
rious day most certainly. And what does he say 
of it? " This is the day which the Lord hath 
made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." Here, 
then, is a prediction that the day on which the 
Redeemer rose from the dead, should be conse- 
crated, should be a day of joy and gladness in the 
church ; a day of holy commemoration, as it hath 
been ever since, and we doubt not will be till the 
second coming of Christ. And this is the Chris- 
tian Sabbath. 

Thirdly ; Christ has left us his own exam- 
ple, in favour of the change for which we con- 
tend. Not a syllable is said, subsequently to 
his resurrection, about his keeping the Jewish 
Sabbath. But he appeared to his disciples re- 
peatedly, on the very day that he rose, and he 
met them again the next first day of the week, 
when they were assembled for worship, and said, 
" Peace be unto you ." Now, why was this fact 
recorded, if it was not that Christ intended to be- 
queath to the Church his own example for her 
imitation Surely, if as Lord of the Sabbath 
day, he had meant to perpetuate the seventh, in- 
stead of the first, he would not have neglected 



the former, and put a special honour upon the 
latter. 

Fourthly ; the apostles, themselves, kept the 
first day of the week, and the churches which 
they planted, were accustomed to assemble on 
that day for public worship. Thus, in one of his 
apostolic visits, Paul " came to Troas, where he 
abode seven days. And, upon the first day of the 
week, when the disciples came together to break 
bread, he preached unto them, ready to depart on 
the morrow." To the church of Corinth, he gives 
this charge. " As I have given order to the 
churches of Galatia, so do ye. Upon the first 
day of the week, let every one of you lay by him 
in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be 
no gathering when I come." This plainly shows, 
that the churches met regularly on the first day 
of the week, and that in this, they had the entire 
sanction of their spiritual guides and teachers. 
But who were these teachers ? Men whom Christ 
had chosen for the express purpose of establishing 
the Gospel Church on a right foundation ; and 
who, in this most important matter, acted under 
the unerring guidance of the Holy Spirit. The 
promise of the Saviour, before he left them, 
was, " I will pray the Father, and he shall give 
you another Comforter, that he may abide with 
you for ever. And the Comforter, which is the 
Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my 
name, he shall teach you all things, and shall 
bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever 
1 have said unto you." 

Now can any one believe, that these holy and 
inspired men acted without authority ; yea, that 



44 

they acted against the express authority of God, 
in reference to the Sabbath ? But they observed 
the first day of the week, and this became the es- 
tablished usage of all the primitive churches. 
The inference, to our own minds, is irresistible. 
They acted by divine authority ; and their exam- 
ple is a full and satisfactory warrant, for keeping 
the first day of the week, instead of the seventh. 

Fifthly; God early consecrated the Christian 
Sabbath, by a most remarkable outpouring of his 
Spirit. We allude to the day of Pentecost, which 
was the fiftieth day after the resurrection ; and, of 
course, the first day of the week, when the disci- 
ples ' were all, with one accord, in one place ;" 
and the Holy Ghost descended upon them ; and, 
under a single sermon, three thousand were " add- 
ed to the Lord." What a glorious consecration 
of the day, which was thenceforward to be devoted 
to religious instruction and worship 1 How honour- 
able to the divine Saviour, who, on that day, 
seven weeks before, rose from the dead, and finish- 
ed the work of redemption 1 How rich in promise 
to the churches and their ministers, who should 
afterward, on the same day of the week, be, with 
one accord, in one place, and devoutly engaged in 
appropriate religious exercises ! 

Sixthly ; we derive a strong argument in favour 
of the change of the Sabbath, from a comparison 
of the three following passages of Scripture. — 
Mat. xii. 8. For the Son of man is Lord even of 
the Sabbath day. 1 Cor. xi. 20. When we com6 
together, therefore, into one place, this is not to 
eat the Lord's supper. Rev. i. 10. I was in the 
Spirit on the Jtord's day. Now if Christ was 



4o 

Lord of the Sabbath ; if the Sabbath was his day, 
and if the Lord's day was the first day of the 
week, then is the first day of the week the Chris- 
tian Sabbath. Again, if the sacramental supper 
is called the Lord's supper, because he instituted 
it, or because it was appointed to commemorate 
his sufferings and death, then, doubtless, the first 
day of the week is called the Lord's day, because 
he instituted it, or because it was appointed to 
commemorate his resurrection. 

Seventhly ; that the Lord's day was early re- 
garded as holy time, might be proved by innume- 
rable quotations from the writings of the aposto- 
lic fathers, and others who succeeded them in the 
early ages of the Christian church. 

Thus Ignatius, who survived the apostle John 
but eight or ten years, says, " Let every one that 
loves Christ, keep holy the Lord's day ; the queen 
of days ; the resurrection dav ; the highest of all 
days." 

Justin Martyr. — " On the day commonly called 
Sunday, (by the brethren,) all meet together in 
the city and country for divine worship." 

" No sooner," says Dr. Cave, " was Constan- 
tine come over to the church, but his principal 
care was about the Lord's day ; he commanded it 
to be solemnly observed, and that by all persons 
whatsoever ; he made it a day of rest, that men 
might have nothing to do but to worship God, and 
be better instructed in the Christian faith." 

Theophilus, Bishop of Antipch. — " Both cus- 
tom and reason challenge from us, that we should 
honour the Lord's dav, seeing on that day it was, 



46 

that our Lord Jesus Christ completed his resur- 
rection from the dead." 

Let one more quotation suffice. The Synod of 
Laodicea, adopted this canon : « that Christians 
should not Judaize, and rest from all labour on 
the Sabbath, (i. e. the seventh day,) but follow 
their ordinary work; and should not entertain 
such thoughts of it, but that still they should 
prefer the Lord's day, and on that day, rest as 
Christians." 

Lastly ; God has most signally annexed his 
blessing, to the observance of the first day of the 
week, as the Christian Sabbath. This argument 
is so forcibly presented by Dr.- Dwight, that we 
shall make no apology for copying the substance 
of it into our pages. 

Ci If this day be not divinely instituted, then 
God has suffered his church to disuse and annihi- 
late his own institution, (the seventh day Sab- 
bath,) and substituted one of mere human device 
in its stead. Nor is this all ; he has annexed the 
blessing which he originally united to the Sab- 
bath instituted by himself, to that which was the 
means of destroying it, and which was established 
by human authority merely. Can any man be- 
lieve, that he would thus forsake his own institu- 
tion, an institution on which have depended in all 
lands, and ages, the observation, influence, and 
existence of his holy law ? Can any man believe, 
that he who so dreadfully punished Nadab and 
Abihu, for forsaking his own institution in a case 
of far inferior magnitude, and setting up one of 
their own in its stead, would not only, not punish, 
but abundantly and unceasingly bless the Chris- 



47 

tian church, while perpetrating and persisting in 
iniquity of exactly the same nature, and far greater 
degree ? Let it be remembered, that this great 
innovation, if it be an innovation, was begun by 
the apostles, the chosen and inspired followers of 
Christ, and the erecters of his kingdom in the 
world. If they sinned, they sinned wilfully, and 
in defiance of their inspirations. With them, 
however, the blessing began to be annexed to the 
first day of the week, in a most wonderful and 
glorious manner. From them, it has been unin- 
terruptedly continued to the present time. In this 
day, under God, mankind are indebted for all the 
religion which has since been in the world." 

" If then the Christian Sabbath is not a divine 
institution, God has made a device of man a more 
powerful support to his spiritual kingdom, than 
most, perhaps than all others. His blessing has 
been too evident, to admit of a doubt ; — too great 
and too wonderful, to be passed over in silence. 
On this day, the perfections of God, manifested 
in creation and redemption, have more than all 
others, been solemnly, gratefully, and joyfully re- 
membered and celebrated. On this day, millions 
of the human race have been born unto God. 
From the word and ordinances of God, from the 
influences of the Holy Spirit, from the presence 
of Christ in his church, Christians have derived, 
on this day, more than all others, the most delight- 
ful views of the divine character, clear appre- 
hensions of their own duty, lively devotion to the 
service of God ; strength to overcome tempta- 
tions, and glorious anticipations of immortality. 
Take this dav from the calendar of the Christian, 



48 

aod all that remains will be cloudy and cheerless. 
Religion will instantly decay. Ignorance, error, 
and vice will immediately triumph ; the sense of 
duty vanish ; morals fade away ; the acknow- 
ledgment and even the remembrance of God be 
far removed from mankind ; the glad tidings of 
salvation cease to sound ; and the communication 
between earth and heaven, be cut off for ever.' 5 ' 



QUESTION V. 

How is the Sabbath to be Jcept, or sanctified ? 

Section i. 

If God has required us to keep the Sabbath, he 
has doubtless given us such directions in regard 
to the manner of keeping it, that a sincere desire to 
know and do our duty, will make the path entirely 
plain before us. The proper place to look for these 
directions, is in the command itself; and here 
they are very explicitly given. What duties then 
does it enjoin ? What thoughts, words and ac- 
tions does it forbid? " Remember the Sabbath 
day to keep it holy." This is the first section. 
Now to remember the Sabbath day, is to antici- 
pate its approach — to think of it often, especially 
towards the close of the week, and so to order 
our secular affairs, thaL they may not intrench 
upon the beginning of holy time. How many, 

tern of Divinity, Ser; 106. 



4y 

alas, forget the Sabbath and permit themselves to 
be overtaken by it, on the road, in the field, in 
the shop, and in the counting-house. How many 
remember it, not to keep it holy ; but to profane 
it — " by doing their own work, thinking their own 
thoughts, and finding their own pleasures I" 

When we inquire how the Sabbath is to be kept 
or sanctified, every thing depends upon the import 
of the word holy. In turning over the sacred pages 
it will be found, that a great many things are de- 
nominated holy, on account of their being conse- 
crated to the service of God, or set apart exclu- 
sively for religious purposes. Thus to give a few 
examples ; the oil with which the tabernacle and 
its furniture, were anointed in the wilderness, was 
holy oil. Ex. xxx. 25. The crown worn by the 
high priest when he officiated, was a holy crown, 
Ex. xxix. 6. One tenth part of the annual pro- 
duce of Canaan was holy. Lev. xxvii. 30. The 
ark was a holy depository. 2 Chron. xxx v. 3. 
The temple at Jerusalem was a holy building, and 
so were the vessels belonging to it. 1 Chron. 
xxii. 19, and xxxix. 3. Now it is obvious, that 
the holiness of the things above mentioned, con- 
sisted in their being sanctified, or set apart from 
common uses, and employed exclusively in the 
service of God. Thus we elsewhere read, I will 
sanctify the temple and the altar. All the first- 
ling males thou shalt sanctify. I have chosen and 
sanctified this house in the temple. All the ves- 
sels have we prepared and sanctified. The taber- 
nacle then, was holy, because it was dedicated,, 
solely to the worship of the one living and true 
God. The tythes were holy, because they were 



50 

to be appropriated to the support of religion, arid 
for no other use. The4femple was holy, because 
it was dedicated exclusfve»Ly* to the honour and 
worship of Jehovah. The vessels of the temple 
were holy, because they were devoted to religious 
uses, and might on no account whatever, be put 
to any other use. The first fruits were holy, for 
the same reason, and accordingly the people were 
expressly forbidden to sell them. 

Now it is evidently in the same sense, and for 
the same reason, that the Sabbath is called holy. 
It is because God himself sanctified it, or set it 
apart, for a day of holy rest and religious worship. 
As,' therefore, it would have been a profanation 
of the vessels of the temple, to have put them to 
any common use, so it is a profanation of the 
Sabbath, to spend any part of it in those worldly 
employments and recreations, which are lawful 
on other days. If we would keep the Sabbath 
holy, then, we must set it apart as a day of holy 
rest — must spend it in the public and private ex- 
ercises of God's worship ; not contenting our- 
selves with the forms of religion ; not wasting 
any part of the sacred rest in sloth ; but employ- 
ing the whole of it in those religious duties which 
through a divine blessing, prepare the soul for 
heaven. It seems scarcely necessary to add, that 
the appropriate duties of holy lime are religious 
meditation, prayer, self-examination, reading the 
Scriptures and other religious books, attending 
public worship, pious conversation, and the reli- 
gious instruction of children. On each of these 
interesting topics we should be glad to enlarge, 
but our limits will not permit. It follows as a 



51 

necessary consequence, from the preceding obser- 
vations, that no part of the Sabbath may be de- 
voted to common secular employments, or recrea- 
tions. For if the whole day must be spent in re- 
ligious duties, what portion of it is, or can be left 
for the indulgence of worldly thoughts, or for any 
of the ordinary labours and relaxations of human 
life ? This single inference, which it appears to 
us, can neither be fairly evaded nor resisted, over- 
throws at once, most of the pretences by which 
thousands strive to justify themselves, in habitual 
encroachments upon those sacred hours which 
God emphatically calls his own. 

Since, however, the strict observance of the 
Lord's day, is of vital importance to religion, and 
since so many unhallowed hands and wits are em- 
ployed, in paring and explaining away the very es- 
sence of the sacred institution, it seems necessary 
to subjoin a few additional remarks. The prohibi- 
tions of the Sabbatical law are thus stated in a con- 
cise and admirable compend which is familiar to 
many of our readers. " The fourth command- 
ment forbiddeth the omission, or careless perform- 
ance of the duties required, and the profaning 
the day by idleness, or doing that which is in itself 
sinful, or by unnecessary thoughts, words or 
works, about worldly employments or recrea- 
tions." The prohibition of •' unnecessary thoughts, 
words, or works," &c. is the clause which now 
claims our particular attention. The correctness 
of this exposition, must undoubtedly be tested by 
an appeal to the law itself, and to such explana- 
tions of this law as mav be found elsewhere in the 
Scriptures, 



at 

The prohibitory clause of the law, as every 
child ought to know, is in these words. But the 
seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God, 
in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, 
nor thy daughter, thy man servant, nor thy maid 
servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is 
within thy gates. God has said in the preceding 
clause, six days shalt thou labour and do all thy 
work. Men are here required to do, not the 
greatest part, but all their work in six days. 
There is no proviso to accommodate the idle, the 
busy, or the sick. Every one must admit, that 
the form of expression amounts to a positive 
prohibition ; for who that must do all his work in 
six days, can be allowed to labour on the seventh ? 
But God saw fit to make the prohibition doubly 
strong, by adding, In it thou shalt not do any 
work. Surely no man after reading this could 
think of attending to his secular affairs on the 
Sabbath, till he had made up his mind, to set the 
authority of the Legislator at defiance. But a 
depraved heart, always fertile in evasions, might 
have suggested, that children, servants, and cattle 
are not included, had not the labour of sons and 
daughters, of servants, and cattle, and strangers, 
been stricitly forbidden. 

In the first place, then, neither heads of families, 
nor others who act for themselves, may do any 
work upon the Lord's day. We may, and ought 
to be diligent in our respective callings. Idle- 
ness is a great sin ; but we may not take God's 
time for doing our work. He has given us six 
days out of seven, which when rightly used, are 
quite sufficient for our own employments. We 



may not encroach upon the Sabbath. It is holy 
time. If we have been idle, or dilatory, we 
must bear the loss. If we have undertaken more 
than we can do in one week, we must defer a 
part to the next. If we have been sick, or 
providentially called away from our business, we 
must never attempt to redeem the time, by break- 
ing God's law ; but trust in his bounty for the 
supply of our wants. 

Secondly ; we may neither require, nor permit 
our children, or servants, to labour on the Lord's 
day We may not require it. If they have been 
faithful six days, it is cruel to deprive them of 
rest on the seventh. And whether they have 
been faithful, or not, we have no right to com- 
mand them. In saying, they shall not do any 
work- God has precluded the exercise of that 
authority, which he permits and requires us to 
exercise, on other days. The parent or master, 
who commands what God forbids, does it at his 
peril. As we may not require, so neither may 
we permit our children and domestics to work on 
the Sabbath. God has made us, in this par- 
ticular, answerable for their conduct. Let us 
not forget the woes which were denounced and 
executed upon the house of Eli, because his 
sons " made themselves vile, and he restrained 
them not." As parents, guardians, or masters, 
we are placed in God's stead ; and are as much 
bound to restrain our children from what the 
divine law forbids, as to enforce their obedience 
to what it requires. 

We cannot dismiss this topic, without remind- 
ing unfaithful parents, if this page should ever 



54 



meet the eyes of such, what a fearful account 
they will have to render at the last day. Let 
those especially, who profane the Sabbath them- 
selves ; who go with their sons into the field of 
labour, or who send them out alone, remember, 
that God will vindicate the honour of his sacred 
institutions, by pouring indignation and wrath, 
tribulation and anguish, upon such daring trans- 
gressors. 

Again ; the law of the Sabbath goes further. 
It is merciful to beasts, as well as men. It stands 
a strong and sacred barrier, for the protection 
of those animals, which God has, under im- 
portant limitations, subjected to our authority. 
We have an undoubted right to employ our 
horses and cattle in moderate labour on week 
days ; but when the Sabbath comes, this right is 
suspended. The command is positive, that they 
Shall not do any work. We may neither subject 
them to labour in our own business, nor let them 
out to others. The latter mode of employing 
them, is even worse than the former ; because in 
nine instances out of ten, men will drive a hired 
horse harder, than they would one of their own. 
How then will those impious contemners of God's 
law, who keep horses and carriages, and let them 
more on the Lord's day than any other, answer 
for their conduct ? What a tremendous respon- 
sibility are the proprietors of stages incurring, 
throughout the United States, and what ian 
amazing aggregate of guilt is contracted by 
thousands of others, who compel their teams to 
labour on the Sabbath ! 



Again ; the prohibitory clause of the law now 
under consideration, includes strangers, as well 
as our own families. The phrase, within thy 
gates, evidently means, within the limits of thy 
control, or rightful authority. Thus when a 
stranger entered the house of an Israelite, he was 
during his stay within the owner's gates, and in 
some sort, subject to the rules of his family. Thus, 
also, every stranger who might happen to be 
found on the Sabbath, any where within the terri- 
torial limits of Israel, was within their gates, and 
therefore might not do any work. In like manner, 
all strangers passing through the places where 
we dwell, or coming to reside amongst us, are 
within our gates, as well as those whom we re- 
ceive into our houses. 

In this view, the law of the Sabbath imposes 
certain duties, both on magistrates and heads of 
families. First on magistrates. The stranger 
must be coerced, if nothing short of this, will in- 
duce him to keep the Sabbath. The law says, 
that he shall not do any work, and thus makes the 
legislative and executive powers answerable to 
God for his obedience. We are not ignorant,, 
that faithful public officers are often censured, for 
presuming to intercept men, who, it is said, are 
going peaceably about their own business. But 
this censure, let it be remembered, falls upon the 
Divine Lawgiver himself. He says, that the 
stranger, as well as the citizen, shall not do any 
work. The stranger, therefore, not only may, 
but must be required to rest. 

Secondly ; as heads of families, we are in no 
small degree made answerable for the conduct of 



all who may, spend the Sabbath within our gates. 
The same authority, which enjoins upon us the 
oversight and control of our children and domes. 
tics, make us for the time being- keepers of all 
other persons, who may choose to abide under 
our roofs. No relaxation, in favour of the friend, 
the boarder, or the passing stranger is admissible. 
Should any be so lost to decorum, as well as the 
fear of God, as to insist on doing their own work, 
and finding their own pleasures on the Sabbath, 
they must be dismissed. Not even the nearest 
relation may be permitted to remain with us, and 
violate the sacred rest. We must obey God, 
however much it may displease men. We must 
vindicate the honour of our Master, at least in 
our own houses. If we love father, or mother, 
more than Christ, we cannot be his disciples. 

Section it. 

Such is the plain letter of the law. And do 
the sacred writers elsewhere give it a more liberal 
construction than the fice of the statute itself 
seems to authorize ? "If not, then wo be to him, 
who shall attempt to explain it away, or to weaken 
its hold upon the consciences of men. If the 
Law-giver has himself seen fit to specify excep- 
tions, and limitations, either in the Old Testament 
or the New-, then the law must be construed ac- 
cordingly. Whatever the Scriptures authorize, 
upon a full and fair investigation and comparison, 
we may do ; but we may not frame exceptions for 
ourselves. If we might make one, to suit our 
convenience, bv the same rule, or rather without 



any rule at all, we might make one hundred — we 
might explain the law of the Sabbath entirely 
away. 

To the law and the testimony, then, let us ap- 
peal ; solemnly remembering, that we may not go 
beyond the word of the Lord, to do less or more. 

Beginning with the Old Testament, we should 
be glad could the discussion be compressed with- 
in our narrow limits, to quote every passage 
which has any bearing upon the question ; but if 
we can present the reader with the tenor and spi- 
rit of the law, in two or three prominent passages, 
we trust every candid mind will be satisfied. 
Turning to the sixteenth of Exodus, we find that 
the Israelites, of their own accord, gathered twice 
as much manna' on the sixth day, as they had on 
any preceding day. Moses approved of this step, 
and directed the people to lay by a part of the 
double allowance for the Sabbath, when none 
should be found in the field. Some, however, 
went out as at other times. And the Lord said 
unto Moses, How long refuse ye to keep my com- 
mandments, and my laws ? See, for that the Lord 
hath given you the Sabbath, therefore he giveth you 
on the sixth day, the bread of two days ; abide ye 
every man in his place, let no man go out of his 
place on the seventh day. We find no licence 
here, for any kind of labour. The Israelites might 
not so much as go out, to gather their daily portion 
of food. It must be brought in the preceding 
day. It seems, however, that they were allowed 
to prepare it, (i. e.) to bake, or boil it on the Sab- 
bath ; for Moses did not require them to cook the 
whole on the sixth dav. Bake that, said he, which 



58 

ye will bake, and seethe that ye will seethe, and 
that which remaineth over, lay up for you, to be 
kept until the morning. From this allowance, we 
infer, that plain and wholesome fare may be pre- 
pared on the Sabbath, without infringing the 
fourth commandment. Having got all things 
ready, on the day preceding, the Israelites might 
cook their manna in a plain way, and that was all. 
The law is believed to grant us the same indul- 
gence, but nothing further. 

We need only refer, as we proceed, to Ex. 
xxxi. 12—18. and also to xxxiv. 25, as neither of 
these passages, at all abates the strictness of the 
sacred institution, as explained in the decalogue. 
The same remark will apply to Nehemiah xiii. 1 5 — 
23. The reader is requested to examine these 
references at his leisure. Exactly in the spirit of 
the fourth commandment, is the following promise 
to Israel by the mouth of Isaiah. " If thou turn 
away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy 
pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a 
delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable ; and 
shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor 
finding thine own pleasures, nor speaking thine 
own words ; then shalt thou delight thyself in the 
Lord : and 1 will cause thee to ride upon the high 
places of the earth ; and feed thee with the heri- 
tage of Jacob thy father : for the mouth of the 
Lord hath spoken it." Surely there is nothing 
here to justify a more liberal construction of the 
law than that which we have given above, and this 
we take to be the language of Moses and the 
Prophets throughout 



59 



Let us then turn to the New Testament. In 
what light did the great Lord of the Sabbath, re- 
gard the sacred institution ? This will appear, 
from the following incidents in the momentous 
history of his life. Going into a synagogue, as his 
custom was, on the Sabbath day, he found there a 
woman, who had been grievously afflicted with 
disease, for the space of eighteen years, and he 
healed her. Wherefore the ruler of the syna- 
gogue indignantly rebuked the people ; — There 
are six days in which men ought to work : in them, 
therefore, come and be healed, and not on the Sab- 
bath day Our Lord knowing that this rebuke 
was intended for him, answered, Thou hypocrite, 
doth not each one of you on the Sabbath day loose 
his ox, or his ass from the stall, and lead him away 
to watering ; and ought not this woman, being a 
daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound* lo, 
these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on 
the Sabbath day ? — And all his adversaries were 
asltamed. 

On another occasion, we read that Jesus ivent 
on the Sabbath day through the corn, and his dis- 
ciples were an hungered, and began to pluck the 
ears cf corn and to eat. Some of the Pharisees 
happening to be present, charged them with break- 
ing the Sabbath. Our Lord fully justified his dis- 
ciples on the ground of present necessity. Pro- 
bably their little store of provisions was exhausted, 
and they had no other means of allaying the cra- 
vings of hunger. Under these circumstances, 
they might lawfully do, what would have been un- 
lawful, had they not been in distress. k4 If ye had 
known what this meaneth, I xcill have mercy, and 



60 

not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned ike 
guiltless." The same day, our Lord found in the 
synagogue, a man whose hand was withered. The 
Jews, in their usual captious style, asked him, Is 
it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day ? And he said 
unto them, what man shall there be among you, 
that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit 
on the Sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it, and 
lift it out ? How much, then, is a man better than 
a sheep ? Wherefore it is lawful to do well, on 
the Sabbath days. 

These quotations, it is believed, contain all the 
expositions, which our Lord thought proper to 
give of the fourth commandment ; and let it be 
noted and remembered, that they are works of 
mercy only, which he justifies on the Sabbath. It 
was to relieve the ox, or the sheep, from present 
suffering, that he might be pulled out of a pit, or 
led away to watering. It was to deliver men and 
women from pain and distress, that Christ healed 
them on the Sabbath. It was because the disci- 
ples were then hungry, that he excused them, for 
plucking and rubbing a few ears of grain, as they 
passed through a field, on their way, (it would 
seem,) to public worship. Neither the precepts, 
nor the example of Christ, can be pleaded, to 
sanction works of any other character, than such 
as have been mentioned. 

The preceding observations will, if we mistake 
not, help the reader to understand and limit the 
word necessity, as it is used in a very brief, but 
able commentary on the ten commandments. 
"The Sabbath is to be sanctified, by an holy 
resting all that day, from such worldly employ- 



61 

ments and recreations as are lawful on other 
days, and spending the whole time in public and 
private exercises of God's worship, except so 
much as is to be taken up in works of necessity 
and mercy" We are persuaded that the word 
necessity here has in a thousand instances been so 
defined, as to cover real, not to say palpable vio- 
lations of the fourth commandment. For how 
easily do men persuade themselves that whatever 
their interest seems to require, is a work of ne- 
cessity. 

Thus, one man harvests his wheat on the Sab- 
bath, as a work of necessity ; another carts his 
hay ; a third posts his books ; a fourth pursues 
his journey ; a fifth spends the day in writing let- 
ters of business ; a sixth loads and sends out his 
ship. Now, the assembly of divines certainly 
cannot be held answerable for all the latitudina- 
rian constructions w r hich can possibly be put upon 
their language. It would be most unreasonable 
to demand of them what no writer or speaker 
ever has done, or ever can do, viz. to guard ef- 
fectually against all such abuses. The imperfec- 
tions of human language will always afford ample 
scope for miscolouring and perversion. But since 
the word necessity is nowhere used by the sacred 
penmen to designate any thing which is lawful to 
be done on the Sabbath, and since it is liable to 
the greatest abuses, we have sometimes wished 
that it had never been sanctioned by such venera- 
ble authority. 

Since, however, it has been adopted by most 
theological writers, it becomes extremely impor- 
tant to ascertain in what scriptural sense any 
6 



62 

work can be necessary, on the Lord's day. 
Feeding and watering cattle may, doubtless, in 
one sense be called necessary ; because food 
and water are essential to the comfort of beasts, 
as well as men. In a strong and universal sense, 
food is absolutely necessary to sustain human 
life ; no one can long subsist without it. In a 
more general sense, it is necessary every day ; be- 
cause we cannot, in ordinary circumstances, be 
comfortable a single day without it. In this latter 
sense, it was doubtless necessary for the disci- 
ples to pluck the ears of corn. They were hun- 
gry, and food of some kind was necessary, to abate 
the cravings of nature. But in appealing to our 
Lord's indulgence here, we should take care never 
to plead necessity where the cases are dissimilar. 
We may not give a wider, or m >re liberal con- 
struction to the fourth commandment, than Christ 
has given. Such explanations as were necessary, 
he gave, but in all other respects, left the law 
just as he found it. 

We believe the Scriptures do not authorize any 
works, as works of necessity, on the Sabbath, 
which are not, at the same time, works of charity, 
or mercy. Nor are all works of charity and 
mercy allowable. Those, and only those, may 
engage our attention, on the Lord's day, which 
we had no opportunity of doing before, and which 
cannot, consistently with mercy and benevolence, 
be postponed till the end of the Sabbath. Necessary 
works of mercy, would therefore, as it appears to 
us, be more definite, less liable to abuse, and in 
fact more correct, than works of necessity and 
mercy. This would leave us' as the Scriptures 



63 

do, at full liberty to partake temperately of the 
bounties of providence ; to feed the hungry ; to 
lake care of the sick, and to attend to the suffer- 
ings and wants of domestic animals ; while on 
the other hand, it would take away the plea of 
necessity, from those who now gravely bring it 
forward, to justify thoughts and conversation, and 
labours and journies and recreations, which are 
prompted by avarice instead of benevolence ; by 
the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the 
pride of life, instead of mercy. 

Section hi. 

When the discussion of any important subject 
results in the firm establishment of a general 
principle, it is an extremely convenient method of 
evading its application, to remark cooly, that 
every general rule has its exceptions. By a free and 
dexterous use of this trite expedient, men contrive 
to justify themselves in various practices, which are 
contrary, alike to the letter and spirit of the di- 
vine law. On no subject, perhaps, is this per- 
verse ingenuity more frequently employed, than 
upon the prohibitions of the fourth commandment. 
The prevailing belief is, that the Sabbath is an 
ordinance of God, and that as a general rule, 
worldly employments and recreations on that day, 
are sinful. But then, three persons out of four 
have their exceptions ready, and before one- 
half these exceptions are enumerated, the rule 
itself is virtually destroyed. It seems important 
therefore, before the subject is finally dismissed, 
to examine some of the excuses which thousands 



64 

urge, for doing their own work and finding their 
own pleasures upon the Lord's day. It is said, then, 

In the first place, that manual labour in the 
field, is sometimes fully warranted by the most 
urgent necessity, and therefore cannot be a viola- 
tion of the divine law. This is a favourite posi- 
tion with many, whose conduct is in the main 
correct ; and they seem to think it impregnable. 
—Let us try this question of necessity, however, 
by putting an extreme case. " I am very poor* 
my family is large and entirely dependent on my 
earnings for subsistence. This year, for the first 
time, I have a small field of fine wheat, which I 
hoped to secure in good order. But by reason 
of continued rains, it begins to sprout in the 
ear. The first fair day is the Sabbath. Should 
I wait till Monday, it will probably rain again 
and wholly ruin the crop ; in which case, my 
children will be without bread. — Now what is 
duty ? Shall I let the golden opportunity pass 
unimproved, or shall I go into the field and secure 
what a bountiful God has given me ?" 

In examining this supposed case of necessity, 
the reader will perceive at a single glance, that it 
does not come within the rule which we have en- 
deavoured to establish. It will not compare with 
the case of pulling an animal out of the pit ; of 
leading him away to watering ; of healing the 
sick ; or of the disciples plucking the ears of 
corn. If this poor man goes into his wheat field 
to labour upon the Lord's day, it is not to satisfy 
present hunger ; it is not to alleviate distress 
which he, or his family feels at the time, but to pro- 
ride against future want. This comparison of 



65 



- ought, in our apprehension, to settle the 
question ; for what right has either a poor or a 
rich man to do a thing, for which he can find no 
warrant of precept, or example in the Scriptures ? 
God foresaw from the beginning all the circum- 
stances of such extreme cases as that which 
we have supposed, and would no doubt have pro- 
vided for them in the law, had they admitted 
of being exceptions to the general prohibition, 
" thou shall not do any work." 

Now the question is, has he made any such 
proviso ? Has he said, in harvest time thou mayest 
work ? No, but directly the reverse. See Exod. 
xxxiv. 2 1 ; Six days thou shalt work, hut on the 
seventh day thou shalt rest ; in earing time and in 
harvest thou shalt rest. — Why this emphatical and 
peremptory specification I The reason is obvious. 
It was to guard against that very construction of 
the law, which is pleaded for in the case now un- 
der consideration. God knew that the Israelites 
would be strongly tempted to labour on the Sab- 
bath, just as men now are, in the time of sowing 
and of ingathering. He therefore expressly re- 
quired them to rest as at other times, without 
making one proviso for unfavourable seasons, or 
the least exception in favour of the poor. 

Were the Israelites, then, to construe the 
command literally in this respect, and are we 
authorized to give it a different construction ? 
Certainly not. We cannot urge a single ar- 
gument in favour of labouring on the Sabbath, 
which they might not have urged with equal 
plausibility. The law which forbade them, has 
6* 



66. 

never been repealed. It is therefore as obligatory 
upon us as it was on them. This view of the 
subject appears to be decisive. The poor man in 
the case supposed, must not labour in his wheat 
field on the Lord's day. 

But it may be useful to examine the case mi- 
nutely. The objector begins by alleging his 
poverty as an excuse. This implies that if he 
were rich, he would think himself bound to rest 
and to run the venture of losing the crop. Is 
there then one moral law for the rich, and an- 
other for the poor ? Let him turn over every 
page— let him read every verse of his Bible, and 
see if he can find any thing like it. From what 
book, or chapter can he adduce a " thus saith the 
Lord, though the rich may not labour on the 
Sabbath, the poor in certain circumstances may 
work V We know it may be said, that the 
poor man who works, has a better excuse for so 
doing than his rich neighbour. But what does 
this prove ? Certainly not that the former is 
blameless, but that he may be less criminal than 
the other. 

If the objector can find nothing in Scripture to 
support his plea, but is obliged after all to rest it 
upon his poverty, let him consider where this will 
lead him. If he may violate one command of 
God, because he is poor, why not another ? If 
the fourth, why not the eighth ? If he may labour 
when God says Thou shall do no work, and plead 
poverty as an excuse ; why not take the property 
of another, when God says, Thou shalt not steal, 
and justify himself by the same excuse ? Indeed 



where will he stop ? If he makes exceptions to 
one command of the decalogue without authority, 
why not to all the rest, whenever it may suit his 
convenience ! And if he may, why may not every 
other poor man in the world, and then what 
will become of God's law ! * * * * * Further ; 
if the poor man who has a small field of wheat, 
may labour on the Sabbath to secure it, what 
shall we say of the thousands who have no crop 
at all ? Surely if it be necessary for him to lay 
up his grain for future use, it is quite as ne- 
cessary for them to earn something for future sup : 
port. If he may work because he has a crop, 
much more may they because they have none. If 
it be right for him to earn ten dollars, by gather- 
ing his wheat, it cannot be wrong for his poorer 
neighbour to earn one dollar, by labouring in the 
same field for hire. If then the plea of poverty, 
which we are considering, be valid, if a man may 
work on the Lord's day because he has but a 
little grain and his family will want it : then every 
poor man in the country may work on the Sab- 
bath, to earn something for his destitute family, es- 
pecially in time of harvest. Nay more, all the poor 
who live by their daily earnings and find that they 
cannot obtain a comfortable support in six days, 
may plead necessity, for labouring every Lord's 
day in the year ; — unless, indeed, that comforta- 
ble kind of poverty, which leaves a man some- 
thing to reap, is more urgent, (we might say more 
lawless,) than absolute want. Admit the validity 
of the plea which we have been considering, and 
abide by the consequences, and there is an end of 
the SabbatJu 



68 

But the man who takes up his wheat in the case 
supposed, rests his defence partly on other 
grounds. He tells us that it begins to sprout in 
the ear already. The first fair day is the Sab- 
bath. It may rain again on Monday and wholly 
ruin the crop, in which case his children will have 
to go without bread. A bountiful God, he says, 
has blessed him with this crop, and he asks rather 
triumphantly, " what is to be done ? I intended 
to gather it before, but the weather would not 
permit. Shall I lose all rather than work a 
little for once, upon the Lord's day ? Surely 
God never intended, that the law should be so 
strictly construed." 

Now let all that is here advanced, be candidly 
considered. Suppose, then, it should rain on the 
following Monday, and continue to rain till the 
crop is totally lost. What would that prove ? 
That the proprietor ought to have secured it on 
the Sabbath ? Nothing like it. To the law and the^ 
testimony we appeal, and we are sure no justifica- 
tion of labour can be found there. But his family 
will suffer, it is said, by his neglect. We answer, 
how does he know that ? The Scriptures assure 
us, that in keeping God's commandments, there is 
great reward. I have, says the Psalmist, / have 
been young and now am old ; yet have I not seen 
the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread. 
If God takes away what he seemed about to give, 
or which is the same thing, if he brings a field of 
grain to maturity, and affords no opportunity to ga- 
ther it without violating the sacred rest, he has 
wise and good reasons for disappointing the ex- 
pectations of the proprietor. And who does not 



6U 

know, that lie can, if he pleases, more than make 
up the loss in some other way ? Can we be hap- 
py — can we obtain any good thing without the 
blessing of God ? And is the blessing to be se- 
cured by breaking his commandments : by work- 
ing when he says we shall not ? How easily, 
when we seem to suffer loss by obedience, can he 
open sources of gain which we never thought of? 
With what perfect ease on the other hand, can he 
blast our hopes, and mar our comforts, when we 
attempt to benefit ourselves by an infraction of his 
holy law ? * * * * 

But " God has given me a crop, and this is a plain 
indication of his will, that I should gather it ; — 
on week days if I can ; on the Sabbath if I must. 
He surely cannot, after bringing it to perfection, 
intend that it shall be lost." We answer, how do 
you know that ? Suppose he should put it out of 
your power to gather it ? This certainly would 
be no uncommon event. Hundreds of acres are 
destroyed almost every year by winds and hail. 
Great quantities are swept off by sudden inunda- 
tions And not a little is consumed in the barn 
by lightning. It is not true, therefore, that God 
always intends to have the precious grain secured 
and enjoyed, when he has caused it to grow 
and ripen to the harvest. How, then, can you 
know what may be his will in regard to yours 2 
L£ he preserves it from the destructive power of 
the elements, and enables you to secure it, without 
violating his law, then it becomes your duty to se- 
cure it. If not, your duty is to acquiesce cheer* 
folly in the lo==, 



70 

The reader will observe, that we have thus far 
proceeded on the supposition, that in the case now 
under consideration, work must be done upon the 
Sabbath, or the field of wheat will certainly be 
lost : and we do most strenuously insist, that even 
this supposition furnishes no sufficient excuse, for 
encroaching upon the sacred rest. But our main 
argument may be placed on much stronger ground. 
How does the proprietor know, that by leaving his 
grain one day longer in the field, he should lose it ? 
We have it from the best authority, that in one 

part of the town of B , a considerable number 

of farmers, a few years ago, took up and carted 
in their grain upon the Sabbath. The next year, 
just before harvest, their crops were destroyed by 
a hail storm, the ravages of which were mostly 
confined to that neighbourhood ! But we do not 
remember a solitary instance, nor after much in- 
quiry, have we been able to find one, in which a 
field of grain has been lost, by its not being at- 
tended to on the Sabbath. In some instances, it 
may have been injured, so as not to make quite so 
good bread ; but w 7 ho that thinks and acts ration- 
ally, would not prefer poor bread, with the divine 
blessing, to the most costly dainties, with the curses, 
denounced against Sabbath breakers resting on his 
head ? 

Still, however, the plea is urged, that it has 
rained all the week, and may rain again on Mon- 
day, and then my crop will be nearly ruined. We 
answer, it may not rain on Monday, and then your 
grain will be much better fitted for the barn or the 
stack, than it can be on the Sabbath. Very rarely, 
indeed, is even a slight loss incurred, by abstaining 



71 

from labour : — not so often, it is presumed, as by 
performing it. On this point, we will state two 
facts, one of which came under our own observa- 
tion, and the other is fresh in the memory of many. 
The facts are similar. In both cases, there had 
been a long rain in the midst of harvest. In both, 
the first fair day, was the Lord's day. In both 
much grain lay in the swath. In both, some peo- 
ple went into their fields ; while others repaired to 
the house of God. The Sabbath passed away ; 
Monday came, and it did not rain. Those who 
had trusted Providence, and spent the precedincr 
day in the service of God, went out, invigorated 
by rest, and returned frith joy, bringing their 
sheaves with them : while those who would not 
trust their Maker, but spent his holy day, in doing 
their own work, soon found, to their cost, that 
they had hurried their grain in before it was dry, 
and that so far from saving any thing, they incur- 
red much additional labour and expense ! These 
facts need no comment. They speak for them- 
selves, and the lesson which they teach, cannot, 
one would think, be easily misunderstood. 

Thus have we gone through with the plea which 
we proposed to examine, and, unless we greatly 
mistake, the result of the investigation is, that 
even in the extreme case supposed — manual la- 
bour in the field on the Lord's day, is both unpro- 
fitable and sinful. We will not consume the rea- 
der's time in proving, what must be so obvious, 
that if the plea wholly fails in an extreme case, it 
must, of course, fail in all other cases, where the 
alleged necessity is less urgent. It cannot be ne- 
iry io prove, that if the poor man may not 



-" ■ 



gather his little harvest on the Sabbath, the rich man 
may not gather his great harvest — nor that if grain 
may not be secured on that holy day, hay may not — 
nor, finally, that if manual labour, on the Lord's 
day, is sinful in time of harvest, it is sinful at all 
times. 

It will not be denied, that a subject of such 
high and solemn moment as this, demands the se- 
rious consideration of every person in the com- 
munity. If the reasoning and conclusions on which 
we have relied in the preceding pages, be correct, 
then it is certain, that a tremendous load of guilt, 
incurred by profaning the Sabbath, lies on our 
country. For it is a mournful fact, that multi- 
tudes have, of late years, done their own work, in 
what they have been pleased to call cases of ne- 
cessity on the Lord's day. It is high time to 
break off from this sin, by righteousness ; to re- 
pent, and do so no more. Let all those who have 
quieted their consciences, by such pleas and ex- 
cuses as have been stated and examined in this sec- 
tion, give the whole subject a thorough investiga- 
tion, and beware that they do not rest on ground, 
which will utterly fail them in the day of judgment. 

Let professors of religion, especially, walk in 
the straight and safe path of revealed truth. How 
deeply have some such wounded the feelings of 
their brethren ; what a reproach have they brought 
upon their profession in the eyes of the world, and 
how highly have they provoked the great Lord of 
the Sabbath, by going into their fields to labour 
on that holy day 1 

If it were a very doubtful question, it would be 
their plain duty to abstain, in all cases ; for they 



are required to avoid even the appearance of evil. 
How much more imperious then is the duty, when 
the practice is plainly contrary to one of the ex- 
press commands of the decalogue. 

But here, certain extreme cases are supposed, 
sometimes honestly, and sometimes captiously, 
which deserve a moment's consideration : — such 
as the following : " If my house takes fire on the 
Sabbath, shall I not extinguish it ? If a sudden 
inundation threatens to sweep away my hay, or 
grain, shall I not try to secure it ? or to under-, 
mine my dwelling, shall I not endeavour to pre- 
vent it ? When a ship is wrecked in a storm, on 
the Sabbath, shall nothing be done to save the 
cargo ? Or, shall no breast- work be thrown up 
to repel the attacks of an enemy ? If it is lawful 
to do these things on the Sabbath, where shall we 
stop and draw a line, beyond which it would be 
criminal to go ? If we may labour to save our 
property from the ravages of fire and floods, why 
not, also, to save it from the destructive effects of 
long-continued dampness, or drenching rains, in 
hay-making and harvest V 

To all such questions, we give this answer. In 
asking them, you are either sincere, or your object 
is to justify your own secular appropriations of 
holy time. If you are sincere ; if these extreme 
cases embarrass you'; if you honestly wish to 
know what you may, and what you may not 
do on the Sabbath, a little reflection must be suf- 
ficient to convince you, that there is a wide dif- 
ference between secular labour — such as going 
out to reap your harvest, or make your hay ; and 
those sudden efforts which are sometimes demandr 
7 



74 

evi 9 by the breaking out of fire, or water ; but 
which you, perhaps, may never be called to make 
once in your lives. Besides, in common parlance* 
the former is doing work, and the latter is not. 
To stop where such a manifest difference exists, 
is easy ; but if you once pass these bounds, you 
will find it extremely difficult to stop any where ; 
—so great will often be the apparent urgency of 
every kind of manual labour. This is our answer, 
to all those who wish to know their duty, and to 
be governed by the spirit of the divine law. 

But if your object in putting such extreme cases 
is, to prepare the way for the sweeping inference, 
that whenever any thing which is exposed to loss 
or injury, can be saved by labouring on the Sab- 
bath, it is right to work, we have little hope of 
convincing you, that the inference is unauthorized. 
For, in the first place ; human judgment is so 
much under the control of inclination, that men 
generally believe what they ardently wish to have 
true. And, in the second place ; when they are 
anxious to free themselves, as much as possible, 
from the restraints of any divine statute, God often 
gives them up to judicial blindness, that " they may 
eat the fruit of their own way, and be filled with 
their own devices." " If any man will do his will, 
he shall know of the doctrine ;" but if not, how 
can he expect to know ? 

Section iv. 

The prohibitory clause of the fourth command- 
fhent, undoubtedly forbids travelling on the Lord's 
ffe^ either for the pake, of gain, or pleasure, We 



75 



have no more tight to iind our own pleasures uii 
the public road, than in a private house, or on a 
public green. If we seek them any where, the 
holy day is profaned. And, if it be a violation of 
God's law to labour in the field for money, or for 
bread, surely travelling for similar objects, cannot 
be justified. Secular business does not change 
its nature, from any mere change of circumstan- 
ces. To condemn the farmer, who ploughs and 
sows on the Lord's day, and, at the same time, to 
excuse the merchant, who continues his secular 
business, would be manifestly absurd. * God is 
no respecter of persons." 

But there are certain popular arguments and 
excuses, which ought to be weighed in the bal- 
ances of the sanctuary, while we are upon this 
part of the subject. The merchant, for example, 
after eulogizing the Sabbath as an eminently use- 
ful and important institution, reasons in this man- 
ner : — " My ship has just arrived in a distant 
port, and I must be there to receive and dispose 
of the cargo, as soon as possible. Or, the times 
are critical, and if I do not make the most of every 
day, I shall be ruined. Or, the markets are so 
extremely fluctuating, and so much depends upon 
seizing the favourable moment for buying and sell- 
ing, that the Sabbath cannot always be punctilious- 
ly observed, without incurring heavy losses. Or, 
I have heard that a debtor is in failing circum- 
stances, and he must be brought to a settlement 
with the least possible delay." 

But what, we ask, do these and similar excuses, 
amount to ? Just this, and no more : — a strict 
regard to the law of God. mav, in some extra- 



76 

ordinary cases, be prejudicial to a man's " wealth 
and outward estate." Be it so, and what then ? 
Is it right, can it be safe, to trample on a Divine 
institution for the sake of gain ? Why should 
men plunge so deeply into business, that they 
must either encroach upon holy time, or lose 
their property ? To create such a necessity for 
travelling on the Lord's day, and then frame that 
necessity into an excuse, is ingenious enough, to 
be sure : but then it is robbing God. It can be 
regarded in no better light, than as a daring ex- 
pedient to bring down his immutable law to the 
low and fluctuating standard of human conve- 
nience or avarice. And is that law to be thus 
bartered away for a little temporary gain, which, 
when secured, " drowns so many thousands in de- 
struction and perdition ?" 

If a man in great and prosperous business, may 
plead the urgency of it as an excuse for travelling, 
why may not every other man in business plead 
for the same indulgence ? If one man, who is 
now worth half a million, or only fifty thousand 
dollars, may pursue his journey on the Sabbath, 
to add some thousands more to his fortune, why 
may not the small dealer do the same to add fifties, 
or tens ? And how much more should a very poor 
man be excused, when he has a prospect of gain- 
ing a pittance by the journey. 

i < Yes, I admit the force of your reasoning," says 
one, — " this travelling for lucre on the Sabbath, 
will never do. But mine is a different case. I 
am returning from a long journey, and on Satur- 
day night, I find myself twenty miles from home. 
Surely there can be no harm in riding that dis- 
tance in the morning, especially as I am nearly 



•out of money." But is your desire to reach home, 
a sufficient reason for breaking the Sabbath ? Who 
would not rather wait a day longer, than go home 
with the displeasure of God upon him ? As for 
the excuse I have not money enough to enable 
me to lie by on the Sabbath, be assured it will 
cost you more, in the long run, to travel than to 
rest. If you cannot afford to keep God's Sab- 
baths on the road, much less can you afford to 
trample them down in your journey. If the ob- 
ject of your going abroad, was to visit friends in 
health, and you had not the means of defraying the 
expense, without encroaching upon holy time, bet-, 
ter, far, were it never to see them more in this 
world, than to incur the guilt of Sabbath-breaking. 

But we must hasten to dispose of another ex- 
cuse. " I venerate the Sabbath," says one, " and 
mean to keep it ; but I submit the following case 
of conscience. Putting up at a public house on 
Saturday evening, I find myself next morning sur- 
rounded by tipplers, swearers, and gamblers. To 
read, or pray, or meditate, in such a place, is im- 
possible. I can certainly keep the Sabbath better 
on the road than here ; and shall I go or stay ?" 

Ans. 1. How came you to stop at such a tav- 
ern ? Surely had you been anxious to keep the 
Sabbath holy, you might have found a better. 
And is it strange that you should be punished for 
your negligence ? Those who remember the 
Sabbath day, and make inquiries with reference 
to it, will rarely meet with any such difficulty. 

Ans. 2. If there is a place of worship near, go 
by all means, whether it is on your way, or di- 
rectly out of it. 

7* 



78 

Ans. 3. ff not, stay where you are. Perhaps 
God may have sent you there for the very purpose 
©f rebuking the despisers of his law, at least by 
your example ; and will you shrink from it on ac- 
count of its being a severe trial ? 

Another excuse. " I am removing with my 
family — we have a journey of several hundred 
miles before us, and are under the necessity of 
studying as much economy and expedition, as 
possible. Is it not clear that under such circum- 
stances we ought to journey on the Sabbath ?" 
No,— the ease is not quite so clear as you seem 
to imagine. Why do you remove at all ? Is it 
not to better your condition ? Do you expect to 
improve it without the blessing of God; and can you 
look for his blessing while you are violating one 
of his express commands ? Look at the follow- 
ing fact : Not many years ago, two neighbours in 
New England, sat out together with their families 
for the western country. The Sabbath came, 
and with it the question, whether they should rest, 
or proceed on their journey. Here they disa- 
greed ; and one of the party went on, in defiance 
of the fourth commandment Before night, a 
child fell from his wagon under the wheel, and 
was so dreadfully wounded, that the whole family 
was detained upon expense for a number of weeks, 
while the other family, having kept the Sabbath, 
proceeded expeditiously and safely to the place of 
destination. 

Those who expect to gain time by travelling 
on the Lord's day, forget that cattle and horses 
were never made to work seven days in a week. 
The rest which God has ordained, is so necessary 



79 

to renovate their strength, that taking a very tew 
weeks together, they will do more in six days than 
in seven. This might be substantiated, did our 
limits permit, by an appeal to many experiments, 
which have actually been made, in various parts 
of the country. Take the following as an exam- 
ple: Two neighbours sold their farms, and started 
with their families for Ohio. One of them travelled 
the first Sabbath, and the other rested. Before 
the end of the following week, the Sabbath-keep- 
ing family overtook and passed by the other. The 
next Sabbath they rested again, and in the course 
of the day were left behind at the inn. In this 
mariner, the two families proceeded, the one keep- 
ing the Sabbath strictly, and the other paying no 
regard to it. But the former completed their jour- 
ney as soon as the latter, and with their team in a 
much better condition. Such, we doubt not, 
would be the result of ninety-nine similar trials 
out of a hundred. God has said, that our cattle 
shall do no work on the Sabbath, and if we com- 
pel them to work, we shall most certainly be 
losers in the end. 

But suppose the saving by travelling with your 
family on the Lord's day, were to exceed your 
most sanguine calculations. Would that make it 
right ? Would it secure the blessing of heaven 
in the end ? Better, infinitely better would it be, 
for any man always to remain in a cottage, and in 
the fear of God, draw a scanty subsistence from 
a few acres, than to break one of the least of his 
commandments to gain splendour and affluence in 
a large house, and upon a lordly domain. 



80 

Some people contrive very economically to quiet 
their consciences, by attending public worship 
along on the road. The calculation is, to rise 
early ; ride as far as they can before the morning 
service ; hear a good sermon, while their horses 
are refreshed with a good mess of provender ; 
call at another church in the afternoon ; then pro- 
secute their journey till night, and reckoning up 
their good fifty miles, retire to rest, blessing 
themselves that they have kept the Sabbath at 
once so devoutly and so profitably. 

Others, again, contrive to make every thing 
quiet within, by taking along with them as a con- 
venient passport, some real, or pretended invalid ; 
and others still, compromise matters with con- 
science, by resting in the day time, and travelling 
till a very late hour on both the preceding, and 
following evenings. 

We cannot dismiss this topic, without just 
alluding to a few of the subterfuges, to which 
even professors of religion, (we blush to say it,) 
resort upon the great thorough fares of our 
country in steam boats, packet boats and stages. 
One plea is, that " these conveyances will proceed 
on the Sabbath, whether we go or not ; and it is 
better to proceed quietly on our way, than to re- 
main at a public house, where our devotions must 
be liable to continual interruptions." 

Another argument is, < { we often meet with the 
best of company, whose conversation is extreme- 
ly serious and edifying.' 3 Another is, " the boats 
are well furnished with religious books of all 
kinds, and we can spend the day as quietly as we 
could at our own homes. And then what 



81 

harm is there, if while we sleep we gain a hun- 
dred miles in our reckoning ? 

Another plea is, (though we feel constrained 
to put it down as slander,) that " clergymen are 
often found in these Sabbath day conveyances ; 
and that they preach most excellent sermons," 
and so forth, and so forth ! Now all these gen- 
teel and fashionable methods of keeping the Sab- 
bath, are palpable violations of it, 

Nor must we omit to class the habit of going 
to sea on the Lord's day, among these crying 
transgressions. How often are the principal 
wharves, in our seaports, crowded on Sabbath 
morning, by persons of all ranks and occupa- 
tions. What hurry is there — what confusion — 
what disturbance to all that live in the neigh- 
bourhood. Might we not add, what cursing and 
swearing eften ! What a running of porters — 
what a bustling of owners, freighters, supercar- 
goes, passengers, and sailors ! What scenes of 
confusion, prolonged sometimes till noon, some- 
times till evening ; taking in stores, bringing 
and receiving letters, stowing away baggage, 
weighing anchors, bending sails and the like ! 
This hasty sketch, reader, is no fiction. Nothing 
is exaggerated. In truth, the half is not told. 
Such are the circumstances, under which thou- 
sands part with their friends to see them no more. 
Such are the preparations, with which tens of 
thousands take their departure, to brave the dan- 
gers of the seas 1 Can it be thought strange 
if they make losing voyages, or if they never re- 
turn 9 



tt°2 

The sacred rest is also violated, to a most 
alarming extent, by parties of pleasure sailing 
about the innumerable bays, harbours, and inlets 
of our extensive sea-board ; and upon the rivers, 
lakes, and ponds which every where intersect our 
country. — O what a palpable transgression of the 
fourth commandment ! How can it be viewed in 
any other light ? Is manual labour forbidden ? 
Is travelling for gain, or for pleasure ? And can 
any body suppose, that the infinite Lawgiver in- 
tended to make an exception, in favour of those 
who do their own Work or find their own plea- 
sure upon the water ? Undoubtedly, when a ves- 
sel is at sea, continuing her course on the Sab- 
bath is no violation of the holy rest. But this is 
a widely different case from any that we have 
mentioned ; and, therefore, can afford no shadow 
of justification, either for leaving port on the 
Sabbath, or for being out when it can be avoided. 

Now, could all, or could a tenth part, of these 
violations, with their attendant evils, and certain 
consequences, be presented to any serious mind, 
at one view ; we are sure they would appear like 
great mountains of guilt, sufficient to sink a na- 
tion in the gulf of ruin. 

We are well aware that A B and C all have 
their excuses : but there is no excuse, for vio- 
lating the Sabbath, which will bear to be ex- 
amined. The scripture cannot be broken. — 
The holy law of God must and will stand. And 
wo be to all such as deliberately, or habitually 
violate it, in any of the ways that have been men- 
tioned . 



bo 

Section v. 

Wherever the Sabbath is kept holy, it will bring 
along with it the richest temporal and spiritual 
blessings. Here we appeal to the promises of 
God and to undeniable facts. 

The promises are such as these : — " For thus 
saith the Lord, unto the eunuchs that keep my 
Sabbath and choose the things that please me, and 
take hold of my covenant ; even unto them will 
I give in mine house and within my walls, a 
place and a name better than sons and daughters ; 
I will give them an everlasting name that shall not 
be cut off. Also the sons of the strangers that 
join themselves unto the Lord to serve him — every 
one that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it, and 
taketh hold of my covenant, even them will I bring 
to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my 
house of prayer : their burnt offerings and their 
sacrifices shall be accepted upon my altar." Isai. 
lvi« 4 — 7. " If thou turn away thy foot from the 
Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day ; 
and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the 
Lord, honourable ; and shalt honour him, not do- 
ing thine own ways, nor finding thine own plea- 
sure, nor speaking thine own words : Then shalt 
thou delight thyself in the Lord ; and I will cause 
thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and 
feed thee with the heritage of Jacob, thy father : 
for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." Tsai. 
lviii. 13, 14. "And it shall come to pass, if ye 
diligently hearken unto me, saith the Lord, to 
bring in no burden through the gates of this city 
on the Sabbath day, but hallow the Sabbath day, 



84 

to do no work therein ; then shall there enter in- 
to the gates of this city, kings and princes sitting 
upon the throne of David, riding in chariots and 
on horses, they, and their princes, the men of Ju- 
dah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem ; and this 
city shall remain for ever." Jer. xvii 24, 25. 

These surely are great and precious promises. 
All the pious Jews found them so in their own 
happy and prosperous experience, and it is too 
late to say, that they were meant for the Jews 
only. For in establishing the perpetuity of the 
Sabbath, we have in effect proved that the pro- 
mises and denunciations connected with keeping 
or profaning it, are addressed to all mankind. To 
all who keep the Sabbath holy in every age and 
nation the promises come, laden with some of the 
richest blessings of heaven. 

" I have long found by experience," says Lord 
Chief Justice Hale to his children, "that the due 
observance of this day, and the duties of it, have 
been of singular comfort and advantage to me ; 
and I doubt not, that you, my children, will find it 
so to you. God Almighty is the lord of our time, 
and lends it to us ; and as it is but just that we 
should consecrate this part of our time to him ;— 
so I have found by a strict and diligent observa- 
tion, that a due observance of this day, hath ever 
had joined to it a blessing upon the rest of my 
time ; and the week that hath so begun, hath been 
blessed and prosperous to me ; and on the con- 
trary side, when I have been negligent of the du- 
ties of this day, the rest of the week hath been un- 
successful and unhappy to my secular employ- 
ments ; so that I could easily make an estimate of 



85 

my own secular employments the week following, 
by the manner of my spending the Sabbath day : 
and this I do not say slightly, or inconsiderately ; 
but upon a long and sound observation and expe- 
rience." 

Few Christians, probably, have been so obser- 
vant in this particular as Sir Matthew Hale ; but 
not a few can, we are persuaded, give substan- 
tially the same testimony from the less full and ac- 
curate records of their own personal experience. 
Keeping the Sabbath holy, is an essential branch 
of that " godliness, which is profitable unto all 
things, having promise of the life that now is, as 
well as of that which is to come." All men in a 
Christian land might know if they would, that in 
keeping the fourth commandment, as well as every 
other, there is great reward. It is a reproach to 
thousands of professing Christians, that while the 
world has its monthly prognostications, its lucky 
and unlucky days, borrowed from the heathen, or 
designated by mere caprice, they lay so little stress 
upon a day, the devout observance of which has 
such a mighty influence upon the happiness of in- 
dividuals, and the well-being of society 

The Sabbath was made for man — was made for 
his comfort — was made to promote his happiness 
here, and to prepare him for an eternal rest in 
heaven. Our being required to keep the Sabbath 
holy, casts a divine lustre upon the benevolence of 
its Author: — for it is exactly adopted to our na- 
ture and circumstances ; so far is it from interrupt- 
ing the lawful and necessary business of human life, 
that it gives new energy to our bodies and minds, 
and new sweetness to all our secular labours. It 



is a fact well attested, and fully established by ex- 
perience, that in the long run. men can do more 
work in six days of the week, than they can in 
seven. The same, as we have already remarked, 
is true of cattle and horses ; so that the mere 
worldling finds it for his interest to rest on the 
Lord's day. 

A fact occurs to us here, which is directly in 
point. Not many years ago a contractor went on 
to the west, with his hired men and teams, to make 
a turnpike road. At first, he paid no regard to 
the Sabbath : but continued his work as on other 
days. He soon found, however, that the ordi- 
nances of nature, no less than the moral law, were 
against him. His labourers became sickly ; his 
teams grew poor and feeble, and he was fully con- 
vinced, that more was lost than gained by working 
on the Lord's day. So true is it, that the Sabbath 
day labourer, like the glutton and the drunkard, un- 
dermines his health, and prematurely hastens the 
infirmities of age and his exit from this world. 

Section vi. 

The Sabbath has been kept as holy time, by the 
people of God, in all ages. It has been to them, 
not a burden, but " a delight, the holy of the 
Lord, and honourable." That such eminent 
saints as Moses, Joshua, Samuel, David, and Ne- 
hemiah, were strict and constant in their obser- 
vance of it, cannot be doubted. That the apos- 
tles and primitive churches statedly assembled for 
public worship, on the Lord's day, is certain. And 
that they abstained from labour, and spent the 



whole day in religious duties, may be confidently 
inferred, as well from their ardent piety, as from 
the sanctions of the Divine Law, which they can- 
not be supposed to have disregarded. For we 
have already proved, that Jesus Christ left the 
law as he found it, after freeing it from the false 
glosses of the Scribes and Pharisees. The disci- 
ples would, of course, take it from him. And as 
the people of God had always done before them, 
they would remember the Sabbath day to keep it 
holy. This is the only fair and legitimate infer- 
ence, and it cannot be set aside by any thinn- short 
of direct proof to the contrary The L.oie fur- 
nishes no such proof: — not a word, nor a hint that 
Christians of the apostolic age, did their own work, 
or found their own pleasures on the Lord's day. 
That the Sabbath has been regarded and kept as 
holy time, in the sense already explained, and in 
almost every subsequent age, might be proved by 
innumerable quotations from the works of the 
Christian fathers, the decrees of councils, and the 
statutes of ancient kings, as well as from the wri- 
tings and practice of the most eminent reformers 
and brightest luminaries of the Church within the 
last three hundred years. But we can only afford 
room for a few brief extracts. 

Ignatius, a disciple of the apostle John, says, 
" Let every one that loves Christ, keep holy the 
Lord's day." 

Chrisostom gives this reason, why Paul appoint- 
ed the first day of the week for collections in the 
churches of Corinth — " Because they did abstain 
from all works, and the soul was more cheerful 
for the rest of the day." 



88 

Irenius. — Each of us spends the Sabbath in a 
spiritual manner, meditating on the law of God 
with delight, and contemplating his workmanship 
with admiration 

Eusebius, in his life of Constantine, assures us, 
that when the emperor embraced Christianity, he 
appointed that the Lord's day should be consecra* 
ted to prayer, and commanded, that through all 
the Roman empire, they should forbear to labour 
or do any work on the Lord's day. 

The following edict of the Emperor Leo, A. D. 
489, is very explicit and remarkable. " It is our will 
and pleasure, that the holy day, dedicated to the 
most high uiod, should not be spent in sensual re- 
creations, or otherwise profaned by suits of law." 
With respect to farmers, it is added, " As to the 
pretence, that by this rest, an opportunity may be 
lost — this is a poor reason, considering that the 
fruits of the earth, do not depend so much on the 
diligence and pains of men, as on the efficacy of 
the sun, and the blessing of God. We command, 
therefore, all, whether husbandmen, or others, to 
forbear work on this day of our resurrection. For 
if other people, (meaning the Jews,) keep the sha- 
dow of this day in a solemn rest from all secular 
labour, on the Sabbath, how much rather ought 
we to observe the substance, a day so ennobled by 
our gracious Lord, who saved us from destruc- 
tion." In France and Burgundy, as early as the 
sixth century, laws were made to the same effect. 
Charles the Great of France, son of Pepin, con- 
voked the clergy, to make canons for the keeping 
of the Sabbath, and also published his own royal 
edict, of which the following is an extract. " We 



ordain, (as it is required in the law of God,) that 
no man do any servile work on the Lord's day, i. e. 
that they employ not themselves in the works 
of husbandry, in dressing their vines, ploughing 
their ground, making hay, felling trees, digging in 
the mines, or building houses, that they do not go 
a hunting in the fields, or plead in courts of jus- 
tice : but that they all come to church, and mag- 
nify the Lord their God, for those good things, 
which are this day to be bestowed upon them !" 

Of Tkeodosius, kin f of the Bavarians, it is re- 
corded, " that he would not permit his subjects 
to yoke their oxen, or make hay, or carry it in on 
the Lord's day." 

The canons and constitutions of the churches, 
enjoining the sanctification of the Sabbath, with 
equal strictness, are too numerous and too long to 
be transcribed. But we cannot doubt, that the 
practice of those who really feared God in those 
early ages of the Christian dispensation, corres- 
ponded, in a good degree, with the letter and spi- 
rit of the laws, both civil and ecclesiastical, to 
which we have just referred. The principles and 
habits of the early settlers of our country, in re- 
gard to the Sabbath, are too well known to require 
any thing more than a passing remark. Suffice 
it to say, that they were men who " feared God 
and kept his commandments ;" and that they 
reg rded a devout observance of the Lord's day, 
as essential to the preservation of all their civil 
and religious institutions. 

We bless God, that in our own times, there is 
something more than a " remnant" left, to reve- 
rence and defend the sacred institution ; that, 



90 



notwithstanding the reiterated assaults of open 
enemies, and the more dangerous mining of false 
friends, multitudes still cleave to it, as the sheet- 
anchor of our political ark, and the best safeguard 
of our civil rights, no less than the guardian angel 
of the Church, through all the perils of the wil- 
derness. 

Conclusion. 

Here, then, upon the broad basis of Divine 
Constitution, we take our final stand ; and appeal 
to those who have followed us thus far, whether 
we have not satisfactorily proved, 

First. That the Sabbath emanated directly from 
the will and authority of God himself: 

Secondly. That He instituted it, when he rest- 
ed from all his work, on the seventh day of the 
first week, and gave it primarily to our first pa- 
rents, and, through them, to all their posterity : 

Thirdly. That the observance of it was en- 
joined upon the children of Israel, soon after they 
left Egypt, not in the form of a new enactment, 
but as an ancient institution, which was far from 
being forgotten, though it had doubtless been 
greatly neglected under the cruel domination of 
their heathen masters : 

Fourthly. That it was re-enacted with great 
pomp and solemnity, and written in stone, by the 
finger of God, at Sinai : 

Fifthly. That the sacred institution then took 
the regular form of a statute, with explicit prohi- 
bitions and requirements, and has never been re- 
pealed, or altered since : 



91 



Sixthly. That it can never expire of itself, 
because it has no limitations : 

Seventhly- That at the resurrection of Christ, 
the day was changed from the seventh to the first 
of the week : 

Eighthly That we are bound to keep and 
sanctify the Lord's day, according to the letter 
and spirit of the fourth commandment : 

Ninthly. That this has been the current and 
practical exposition of the sabbatical law, wher- 
ever the divine authority of Scripture has been re- 
cognized, from the apostolic age down to the pre- 
sent time. 

And now, " what shall we more say ?" In ar- 
guing this cause, we have appealed " to the law 
and the testimony ;" the highest authority in the 
universe : and, if we have not entirely mistaken 
the divine record, the great question is settled. 
The claims of the Sabbath are imperative upon 
every conscience Reader, will you admit, or 
will you reject these claims ? Remember, that if 
you reject them, you do it at your peril ; for it is 
not an institution of man, but of your Creator and 
Judge, that in the hardihood of your temerity, you 
trample under foot. 

We love and honour the men, who have so un- 
answerably proved, that the Sabbath, regarded 
merely in the light of a civil institution, is literally 
above all price ; and that it cannot be overthrown, 
without, at the same time, shaking down the three 
great pillars of the republic — education, morality, 
and religion. Surely, if the argument could be 
pressed no further, that must be a reckless and 
fool-hardy assailant, who should attempt to bring 



92 

down this glorious edifice upon himself, his chil- 
dren, and his country. 

But the ground which we take, it is needless to 
say, is far higher and holier than this. While we 
recognise all the political and other temporal bless- 
ings, which flow from a right observance of the 
Sabbath, we trace them back to the garden of 
Eden, and up to the awful top of Sinai, We ap- 
peal to the tables of stone, to the lively oracles of 
God. Whatever real defects there may be in the 
wisest human institutions ; whatever plausible ob- 
jections may be alleged against their most useful 
provisions; or, however the force of obligation 
may be evaded, when man utters his authority, the 
divine law is perfect, and ultimate evasion is im- 
possible. 

And it is this consideration, chiefly, which 
makes us tremble for the " Ark of the LordJ" and 
for the liberties of our cowntry. Every violation 
of the Sabbath, is virtual rebellion against Him 
who made and sanctified it. In no case, not even 
that of ignorance, in a Christian land, will He 
hold the Sabbath-breaker guiltless ; and, with the 
light which multitudes have, every violation of the 
law is a " running upon the thick bosses of his 
buckler." In his word and in his providence, God 
speaks on this subject, with an explicitness and 
emphasis, which ought to make the ears of the 
whole nation tingle ! <• Then I contended w T ith the 
nobles of Judah and said unto them, what evil 
thing is this which ye do, and profane the Sabbath 
day ? Did not your fathers thus ; and did not 
God bring all this evil upon us and upon this city." 
" Yet ye bring more wrath upon Israel by profa- 



93 

ning the Sabbath." Neh. xiii. " If ye will not 
hearken unto me, to hallow the Sabbath, and not 
bear a burden entering in at the gates of Jerusa- 
lem on the Sabbath day ; then will I kindle a fire 
in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the pa- 
laces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched." 
Jer. xvii. u And I will scatter you among the 
heathen, and draw out the sword after you, 
and your land shall be desolate, and your cities 
waste. Then shall the land enjoy her Sabbaths, 
as long as it liveth desolate, and ye shall be in 
your enemies land, even then shall the land rest 
and enjoy her Sabbaths." Lev. xxxvi. 

It must certainly be admitted, that these quota- 
tions express, as clearly and forcibly, as language 
can express, the high and holy displeasure of 
God against Sabbath-breaking. This crying 
national sin, (with the single exception of idolatry) 
contributed more than any other, to bring wrath 
upon Israel and to sweep them into captivity. 
Now the only question is, whether God regards 
Sabbath-breaking with equal displeasure in other 
nations. And why should he not ? He is the 
same holy Being that he was three thousand years 
ago. The nature of sin is the same. The mo- 
ral law, including the fourth commandment, is the 
same. Human obligation is the same. Nations 
are regarded and treated as moral persons now, 
just as the Jews were under their judges and 
kings ; and national sins have the same tendency 
to sear the public conscience, and undermine the 
foundations of social order. Why then should not 
these sins be punished with divine retributions, 
equally terrible ? We have not room, here, to 



94 

enter into a discussion of this subject, though we 
can hardly think of one which so urgently de- 
mands discussion. It must, it will, soon be taken 
up by some of those able men, in this great chris- 
tian community, who fear God and love their 
country ; and it is easy to foresee, what havoc 
will then be made, of those solid columns of 
resolutions, sophistry and frightful deductions, 
which have recently been set in battle array against 
the friends of the Sabbath. 

In the mean time, let such as deny the doctrine 
of national accountability, for cherished and even 
authoritative violations of the fourth command- 
ment, *» mock on." We heed neither their ridi- 
cule, nor their menaces ; *' the judgments of God 
are abroad in the earth." He will vindicate the 
honour of his own law, however it may be assailed, 
whether by ingenious sophistry, or open defiance. 
One of the first acts of avowed atheism in revolu- 
tionary France, was to abolish the Christian Sab- 
bath ; and the Lord came out against her with 
" fire and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to 
render his anger with fury, and his rebukes with 
flames of fire." Well appointed fleets and armies 
have often been discomfitted in their offensive ope- 
rations upon the Sabbath. Three remarkable in- 
stances occur to us at this moment, in the history of 
the last war. The first was the attack of the British 
and their total defeat on Lake Erie. The second 
was the battle on Lake Champlain. The third was 
the last assault upon the American lines, before 
New Orleans. All these sanguinary battles were 
fought, unless we are greatly mistaken, on the 
Lord's dav : in each the enemy was the assailant ; 



95 

and in each, met with a signal overthrow. In 
like manner, we believe, did almost every battle 
and skirmish during the war terminate, in the de- 
feat of the party making the attack, on the Sab- 
bath day. Let politicians and historians ascribe 
all this to valour, or chance, or whatever else they 
please, we shall still regard it, as no equivocal 
testimony of the anger of God against the de- 
spisers of his law. 

If from the sins and punishments of nations 
and armies, on the Lord's day, we pass to indivi- 
dual transgressors, we are brought to the same 
conclusion Who does not know, that in almost 
every confession from the gallows, Sabbath-break- 
ing is mentioned as one of the principal sins, 
which gradually led on to robbery, rape, and 
murder ? Were a Howard to go through all the 
wards and dungeons of our prisons, and take down 
the honest confession of every wretched inmate, 
who can doubt, that nine-tenths of the whole 
number would put down their disregard to the Sab- 
bath among the causes of their ruin ? And what 
an affecting view is here of the anger of God — - 
against the crying sin of which we are speaking. 
It is as if all the dread machinary of capital pun- 
ishments — the bolts and cells, and chains of every 
prison-house in the land, were to rise up as wit- 
nesses of God's indignation. 

We say little here of the multitudes who are 
suddenly hurried into eternity, in the very act of 
profaning the Sabbath — of the drowning shrieks 
which come up from the bosom of the closing 
waters; and the thronging habiliments of mourning 
which tell of husbands, brothers, sisters, and chil- 
dren, who went out for pleasure when the bell 



M 



called them to prayer, and never returned ! Let 
those who see no sign, and hear no voice of high 
and dreadful displeasure in all this, account for it 
as they may. The record of facts speaks for 
itself and the record will stand, that thousands 
thus perish every year in all the glee and temerity 
of transgression. 

That there is nothing miraculous in any of the 
cases which have been mentioned, does not mili- 
tate in the least against the position we have taken, 
unless it be proved that God cannot punish com- 
munities and individuals in any other way. But 
who will attempt to prove this ? Surely no one, 
so long as he is in his right mind. " God is Go- 
vernor among the nations ;" and he can never be 
at a loss how to employ natural agents and moral 
causes, either to chastise, or utterly to destroy his 
enemies. 

Who, then, in this great controversy, is on the 
Lord's side ? Who is in favour of the Christian 
Sabbath, and who is against it ? there is no such 
thing as neutrality, when the claims of the divine 
law are brought to bear upon the conscience. Do 
you then reverence the Lord's day in the spiritua- 
lity of your affections, and honour it by your exam-* 
pie, and strive to shield it from profanation by your 
influence ? 

Professors of religion, members of the church, 
to whatever denomination you belong — the Lord of 
the Sabbath expects much from you. You have 
publicly sworn allegiance to him, and he requires 
you to redeem your solemn pledge, by rallying 
round the sacred institution. Especially does he 
require the most unequivocal proofs of loyalty, in 



37 

ybufr own obedience to the law of the Sabbath, 
If you break the law yourselves, how can it be 
expected, that others will respect it ? If you en- 
gage in any secular business whatever, if you are 
seen in stages, and steam-boats, and canal pack- 
ets, or travelling for business, or pleasure in your 
own private conveyances on the Lord's day, you 
not only sin against your own souls, but lend the 
whole weight of your example, to embolden others 
in transgression. Dare you advance a step in a 
course like this ? What ! see you not the angel 
of the Lord, standing in the way with a drawn 
sword in his hand ? Neutral ground you cannot 
take ; for if you are not openly for the Sabbath, 
you are virtually against it. 

Come up then, at once, to the help of the Lord, 
grasping the " weapons of your christian warfare 
which are not carnal- but mighty through God, to 
the pulling down of strong holds." Much, very 
much, dear brethren, might you do with such 
weapons, and in so holy a cause, if you could 
muster no more than ten, to a thousand of your 
enemies. But you are very far from being this 
small and feeble minority. Including all Chris- 
tian denominations in the United States, you 
number at least eight hundred thousand, who 
have sworn allegiance to the King of Heaven ; 
and, if you are despised — if your suppliant voice 
is not heard in the high places of power — if either 
your civil rights, or your rights of conscience, are 
deliberately disregarded, it must be, in a great 
measure, your own fault. It must be, because 
you have not done what you could in the circles 
of vour Christian influence — because sectarian 



98 

jealousies have been diligently fomented by your 
common enemies, to prevent you from uniting in 
those measures, to rescue the Sabbath from profa- 
nation, which your privileges as freemen,* and your 
duty as Christians, so imperiously urge you to 
adopt. 

" The children of this world are wiser in their 
generation than the children of light." Their 
motto is, Divide and Conquer. Hence, as they 
perceive that your more frequent intercourse and 
growing Catholicism are "breaking down the 
middle Avail of partition," and bringing you " to 
see eye to eye," on a great and vitally important 
subject, you are, if possible, to be repelled and 
scattered by the magical spell of the words Priest- 
craft, Religious Establishments, Rights of Con- 
science, Church and State, &c. &c. You must 
be made to believe, that, as members of different 
communions ; as Baptists, Methodists, Episcopa- 
lians, Presbyterians, you cannot trust one another : 
that your dearest Christian rights, are in danger ; 
that somebody is somewhere conspiring to wrest 
from you that " liberty wherewith Christ has made 
you free." But will you thus wrong and distrust 
your brethren, by giving heed to calumny and 
fables ? Is there a shadow of evidence, that any 
such conspiracy exists ? If so, let it be adduced ; 
and let the men who would " lord it over God's 
heritage," under the mask of zeal for the Sab- 
bath, or under any other mask, be held up to uni- 
versal reprobation. But, dear brethren, you know 
that the charge is false. You know that the Gene- 
ral Union, which you have recently formed, aims 
at no spiritual domination ; but simply? (what it 



i 



9<J 

professes and avows,) to promote a better sancti- 
fication of the Lord's day. And, surely, you will 
not permit a few ghostly watch-words, to create 
the most unfounded jealousies between your re- 
spective denominations, and thus drive you from 
your noble, your godlike purpose. 

Opposition you will certainly meet with ; and 
much, no doubt, to try your faith and your princi- 
ples ; but because you may be opposed and vilifi- 
ed, and, for a time, borne down by numbers, and 
clamour, and authority, will you abandon the 
great cause of the Sabbath in which you have 
embarked ; or despairingly ask, What can we do 
against such " fearful odds ?" What can eight 
hundred thousand professing Christians do, assist- 
ed, as you will be, by many ten thousands of 
others, who reverence the institutions of their fa- 
thers, and love their country ! What can you not 
do, by prayer, and example, and union, and per- 
severance ? 

Brethren, it is our deliberate and solemn con- 
viction, that God has given you a moral influence 
in this nation, which is sufficient, if wisely em- 
ployed, to arrest the swelling tide of irreligion, 
business, and pleasure, which is every where 
threatening to sweep away the Sabbath, with all 
the mighty interests of time and eternity, which 
are bound up in its destiny. And, if you have 
the moral power to assuage this deluge of sin, 
and restore to the land her weekly rest, need we 
say, that you are answerable to God and to pos- 
terity for the exercise of that power ? Do not 
flatter yourselves, that " pure and undefiled reli- 
gion" ran be preserved a single month after the 



100 

Sabbath is gone : for the house of God will be 
immediately shut up, or thrown down ; your mi- 
nisters will be driven from the altar ; the heaven- 
kindled fire will be extinguished on all the heights 
of Zion ; the Church will be clothed in sackcloth ; 
her tears will be all the day and all the night " upon 
her cheeks ;" and the strings of her " harps upon 
the willows," will be swept only " by the mournful 
breezes of the surrounding desolation." 

Ministers of the Gospel — upon you there rests 
an amazing responsibility. You are set for the 
defence of every holy institution. The Sabbath, 
pre-eminently belongs to you, as the rest of the 
week does to men of other occupations. You 
can do nothing without it. You cannot even gain 
a hearing from the multitudes, who are thronging 
the broad way to destruction. On the Sabbath, if 
ever, you stand upon vantage-ground, to wield 
" the sword of the Spirit," and to subdue the ene- 
mies of Christ. Be valiant, then, in defence of 
the day which God has given you for the exercise 
of your most sacred functions. To you it be- 
longs, to expound the fourth commandment, and, 
in the most solemn manner, to urge its divine and 
perpetual obligations upon all your hearers. Pre- 
sent these obligations in all their strictness, and 
in their full extent. Listen to no compromise. 
Heed no railing. Shrink from no discussion. 
Turn your backs upon no enemy. Take counsel 
of no time-serving policy. However much you 
may insist on the importance of the Sabbath, as a 
mere political institution, let your grand and ulti- 
mate appeal be to the scriptures. One, u thus 
saith the Lord" is worth a thousand arguments 



101 

drawn from any other source. " It is the Word of 
God, that is quick and powerful, sharper than any 
two-edged sword" The edge of every other 
weapon may be turned by a flinty heart ; but this, 
though it may be long parried, will pierce at last, 
" even to the dividing asunder of the soul and the 
spirit, of the joints and the marrow." Much you 
may do, also, in this sacred cause, by your own 
holy example And remember, that a thousand 
eyes are upon you. The slightest infringement 
of the Lord's day, by any of you, will be noticed. 
" Abstain, therefore, in this matter, as w T ell as 
every other, from all appearance of evil." As the 
man who preaches up temperance, must not drink 
any thing himself, so he that exhorts others to 
"remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy," 
must, on no account, forget, or seem to forget, his 
own exhortations. 

Guardians and Instructers of our Youth, in the 
higher Literary Institutions — you can scarcely 
conceive, with what interest all the friends of the 
Sabbath look to you. Under your plastic hands, 
are rising up, not only the public teachers of sci- 
ence, morality and religion, but the future law- 
givers of the country. The very young men, 
whose characters you are daily moulding, for good 
or for ill, will soon occupy posts of power and in- 
fluence, from the Atlantic to the sources of the 
Missouri. See to it, therefore, that you give their 
minds a right moral direction. Enforce upon 
them, both by precept and example, the high and 
sacred obligations of the Christian Sabbath. You 
cannot, indeed, make them all " esteem it a de- 
9* 



102 

light ; 5S for .this requires holy affections, but you 
can enforce the duty of keeping it, by all the au- 
thority of Scripture — by all its obvious weekly 
blessings, and by all the dearest interests of a 
great and growing empire. By the blessing of 
God upon your efforts, very many may be induced, 
not only to sanctify the Lord's clay themselves, but 
to exert a powerful influence, to shield it from 
profanation, and to restore it to its ancient and 
honourable standing in the decalogue. 

Friends and Teachers of our beloved Children, 
in those Heaven-planted Seminaries of the Church, 
which are springing up all over the land — forget 
not to remind your confiding pupils, of the sa- 
credness of the day on which you meet them. 
Enrich their minds with all those passages of 
Scripture, which enjoin the sanctification of the 
Sabbath, Teach them the nature and design of 
the Institution, and make it a leading object, to 
imprint its high and holy claims indelibly upon 
their hearts and consciences. They will bless 
you for it, as long as they live ; the Church will 
pour her grateful benedictions upon your heads, 
and future generations will rise up and call you. 
blessed. 

Parents of young and rising families — consi- 
der, we beseech you, what an amazing influence 
your precepts and example will have upon your 
children, and, through them, upon the cause of 
religion, and the general prosperity of the nation. 
Do you wish to see your sons and daughters vir- 
tuous and happy, teach them to " keep God's Sab- 
baths, and to reverence his sanctuary." Would 



you employ the most effectual means to establish 
your authority over them, and to secure their fu- 
ture reverence for your gray hairs, teach them to 
" remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy." 
Would you train them up for distinguished useful- 
ness in any station whatever, teach them diligently 
the same divine lesson And do you desire their 
salvation, you cannot lay too much stress upon 
the sanctification of the Sabbath, In short, this 
is the first thing, the second thing, and the third 
thing, in a well-conducted Christian education. 

But if these and similar motives cannot reach 
you ; if you care not what becomes of your own 
flesh ; if you are willing to trust the keeping of 
their morals and their happiness, to the wayward 
propensities of unsanctitied nature ; if you covet 
from them disobedience, neglect, and abuse in 
this world ; their withering testimony at the bar of 
God ; and their howling execrations to all eter- 
nity, let them profane the Lord's day as much as 
they please ; let them sport, and fish, and hunt, 
and launch the sail-boat, and lounge in the tavern, 
while others are in the church and the Sabbath 
school. And, lest they should, after all, linger in 
the " broad way," encourage them by your own 
example. Wander about your farms, and see 
that all is right with your flocks, and herds, and 
fences ; or go into your shops, and counting- 
rooms ; or travel with the mail, under the sanc- 
tion of government, and the curse of heaven ; 
or meet your companions in the grog-shop, or on 
the sunny side of the distillery. Attend every 
anti-^abbath meeting, and vole for the resolutions. 



104 

and sign the remonstrance. Denounce all the 
Sabbath-keeping boats, and stages, and all the 
petitions to Congress, as invasions of the rights 
of conscience, and dangerous to the liberties of 
the country. Such a course will do the work for 
your families soon, and will do it effectually. It 
will bring you, by a short route, to the brink of a 
roaring torrent, into which you will plunge in vain 
to rescue your sons and daughters from the yawn- 
ing destruction. 

Honoured and respected rulers of the land, our 
final appeal is to you. — The Scriptures teach us 
to regard you as ministers of God for good to 
this great people ; and how can you so effectually 
secure their enduring prosperity, as by exerting 
all your influence to make them virtuous ? And 
what institution was ever so pre-eminently calcu- 
lated to effect this object, as the Christian Sab- 
bath ? As a school of morals, it stands far, very 
far, above every other. Mighty, indeed, is its 
public influence wherever it is strictly observed. 

By recalling men so frequently from the pur- 
suits of wealth and power, and worldly glory, it 
represses their feverish ardour, and gives them 
time to contrast the perishing objects of their 
toils, with "durable riches and righteousness." 
By assembling persons of all classes upon the 
same level once in every week, the Sabbath warms 
and softens the heart, reins in the fierce and 
wrathful passions, encourages the exercise of the 
benevolent affections ; and quickens into life and 
action, that heavenly charity, "which is the bond 
of perfectness." The Sabbath, including prayer, 



105 

reading the Scriptures, public worship, and family 
instruction, does more than every thing else to 
form a truly virtuous character. 

But for the moral power of Sabbatical institu- 
tions, whose property, or reputation would be safe 
for a single day ? Who could be found to execute 
the laws against any kind of immorality, or what 
would hinder them from being repeated ? Much 
as the Lord's day is profaned in this country, even 
now, it does ten-fold more than all our magistrates 
and prisons, and other legal terrors, to perpetuate 
and multiply our social, civil, and religious bless- 
ings. Take away this barrier, and you open at 
once all the flood-gates of vice and irreligion 
upon a godless and suffering people. You may 
try to prop up your free and admired civil institu- 
tions, but all your efforts will be vain. " The 
overflowing scourge will pass through ;" and, 
neither you, nor your children, can hope to escape. 

" Give up the Sabbath — blot out that orb of 
day — suspend its blessed attractions — and the 
reign of chaos and old night would return. The 
waves of our unquiet sea, high as our mountains, 
would roll and dash, from west to east, and east 
to west, from south to north, and north to south, 
shipwrecking the hopes of patriots, and the world. 

" Who, then, is the patriot that would thrust 
out our ship from her peaceful moorings, in a star- 
less night, upon such an ocean of storms, without 
rudder, or anchor, or compass, or chart ? The 
elements around us may remain, and our giant 
rivers and mountains. Our miserable descend- 
ants, also, may multiply, and vegetate, and rot in 



106 

moral darkness and putrefaction. But the Ame- 
rican character, and our glorious institutions, will 
go down into the same grave that entombs the 
Sabbath ; and our epitaph will stand forth a warn- 
ing to the world— —thus endeth the nation 

THAT DESPISED THE LORD, AND GLORIED IN WIS- 
DOM, WJBALTH, AND POWER*" 



^HE END, 



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